


Blue Skies

by Dolly_Bassett



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - World War II, Aviation inaccuracies, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Period Typical Swearing, Period inaccuracies, Period-Typical Slang, Snap Wexley/Wedge Antilles, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:22:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolly_Bassett/pseuds/Dolly_Bassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WW2!AU. Poe Dameron, the RAF's most daring pilot, is reassigned by Princess Leia to Dacre Airfield to serve as captain for a ragtag crew — including his new navigator, HRH Luke Skywalker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [to the sky without wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609887) by [leupagus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus). 



Flight Lieutenant Poe Dameron marks his twenty-fifth birthday by engaging a Junkers 88 and its escort in the air over the outskirts of London, alone, ignoring orders to cut short the pursuit. He downs the escort and hounds the bomber back before it can get anywhere near the city's boundaries, shooting at it until it blows up and rains down superheated metal and bits of Jerry onto the Essex countryside. He lands to a hero's welcome and a serious fucking squint-eye from Squadron Leader Deso for going so dramatically off-piste. 

He is summoned to headquarters in Whitehall the next morning. Deso accompanies him, tight lipped and silent. They arrive at RAF headquarters, circuitously picking their way along the destroyed street, Whitehall having suffered its own encounter with German bombers and come off worse for it. 

Inside, Poe follows Deso through a series of corridors, until they stop outside double doors, and Deso addresses Poe imperiously.

"Right, Dameron. It's a bow from your head alone, and don't talk first. When it's your turn to speak, it's ‘Your Highness’ from the first address and "ma'am" subsequently. Don't turn your back to her, and do not leave until you are dismissed." 

Poe opens his mouth to ask, but is pushed through into a handsome room before he can do so. A lady sits at a desk that dwarfs her easily, a newspaper spread out in front of her. At Poe's entry, she looks up at him with arresting dark brown eyes. 

Princess Leia Skywalker. Familiar from propaganda posters, daily newspapers, history books. His mum’s mug.

Poe is immeasurably grateful for Deso's rapid-fire briefing. When he looks up from his bow, the Princess is standing, hand outstretched. Her shake is short and unexpectedly firm - Poe resists the urge to massage his hand. "Flight Lieutenant Dameron. Thank you for coming on such short notice." She indicates the seat in front of the desk, before sitting herself. "I trust you had a pleasant journey. Tea?"

There is a tea set at her elbow; fine china, delicately patterned. Its neatness makes Poe immediately reflect on himself. His uniform was pressed and ironed that morning, having been told to dress for a high-level bollocking, but it’s been a four hour slog from Exeter to Whitehall on a packed train and the impeccable turnout of the tea set makes him acutely aware he probably smells like a freshly manured field.

"Uh, thank you, Your Highness."

She pours without fuss, saving him the stress of considering who pours out when the lady in the room is fucking royalty. Her shifted position allows him to see the newspaper spread in front of her; the headline MOST DARING PILOT, over his service portrait. It’s next to a picture of the flaming wreckage of the Junkers 88. 

"This morning's Times." The Princess follows his gaze. "I understand you had a rather interesting day, yesterday."

"After a fashion, ma'am." Poe smiles - it turns flat when her expression doesn't change. "I was given to believe that I had been summoned here for a bol- a good telling off on the back of it, ma'am."

"Do you think you deserve it?"

Poe steels himself. On the journey in he thought a lot about he how would respond to being pulled up for his actions, which for a number of counts he can be court-martialled for - principally disobeying orders to return to base and endangering Crown military property. He doubts the results, or indeed a front page newspaper heralding his daring, will hold much sway with a military court. 

Since he isn't in one yet, he gives an honest answer. "I saw an opportunity to keep the enemy away from London. I decided to take it."

"It was arguably foolish. Squadron Leader Deso was most effusive in his language."

"I can imagine, ma'am."

The Princess takes a sip of her tea. "What do you know of my family?"

Thinking this perhaps one of the strangest segueways into a bollocking he'd had in his career, Poe takes stock of his possible answers. Definitely wrong is to say, ‘You and your are brother are on my mum’s favourite mug.’

More relevant is the degree of involvement that the royal family seems to have in war, ever since they came to power at the turn of the nineteenth century. The first world war was overshadowed by Queen Padme and the King Consort - Leia’s mother a famous beauty and steadfast pinnacle in the sea of shit that war had been, her father a notorious hero/war criminal, depending who you ask. This war seems to feature Leia nearly daily - the figurehead skilled and vocal in politics, pictured at the prime minister's side.

The Princess seems to sense Poe's deliberations. She takes a degree of pity and says, "You're aware that my brother is a commissioned officer?"

Poe says, "Yes ma'am. I am honored to serve in the RAF alongside him." He keeps his tone carefully neutral. As far as he knew the Prince hasn't seen hide nor hair of a real airfield, is holed up in this very building somewhere, flying a desk. 

The Princess says, "He has just completed training as a navigator."

Poe can't stop the movement his eyebrows make. "Which aircraft, ma'am?" 

"Lancasters. He will be moved to VII Squadron within the month."

VII Squadron. Even Poe, a spitfire jock, is aware of it. Fighter airfields tended not to concern themselves with the affairs of the their bomber cousins, but the VII’s reputation was big enough to break this barrier. Known as 'The Flying Circus', it’s headed by Wing Commander Han Solo; a fucking ace pilot by all accounts, but the rumors of where he learned those skills, before joining the RAF, read like the stuff of thriller novels. Or naff romance novels - if scuttlebutt is to be believed, Solo has asked Princess Leia to marry him upwards of a dozen times.

Poe’s brain serves up these details as it processes what the Princess is actually saying. "You're sending a Prince to a front line squadron?" He has forgotten the ma'am. 

Leia appears not to mind. "I assure you, Flight Lieutenant, _I_ am not sending my brother anywhere. He has chosen to go, and no power on Earth will stop him once he is set on a course." 

Poe stays quiet, sensing the edge of personal ground upon which they are beginning to tread.

"Luke's motivations are what they are," Leia says. "I haven't tried to fathom them, but I know as much as anyone who has even glanced at this country's history that my family have always been singularly determined when it comes to affairs of conflict."

Poe says, "May I say with respect, ma’am, that would appear to include yourself."

"Which is why I'm turning my attentions from trying to dissuade him, sympathising as I do with the depth of his feeling."

Mrs and Major Dameron did not raise a stupid boy. Poe's service record is on the desk in front of her, next to the newspaper. After a moment of silence, he clears his throat. "Ma'am. I'm not qualified on Lancasters."

"Your conversion course has been arranged at Whitchurch." Leia says smoothly. "Your things can be sent on from Exeter."

Something cold spikes in Poe's gut, at the thought of leaving his squadron, leaving the Spitfire. "With all due respect, ma'am - this conversation opened with talk of punishing me for my recent exploits. I can hardly see why that would qualify me in your eyes to keep your brother safe." Babysitting duty is an imaginative punishment, though.

Leia smiles. It nearly reaches her eyes. "This -” she points to the newspaper photograph - “shows bravery and talent, but more than that - heart. The commander of whichever crew has the questionable fortune to carry my brother will need all three, to make risking him worthwhile." As Poe chews over his response, Leia's hand hovers over the newspaper. "You can consider it a request, if you prefer, Flight Lieutenant. I can smoothe over whatever waves you made yesterday, and you continue to serve the country gallantly."

"While also personally serving the royal family?" Poe shakes his head. "I won't fly a Lancaster on the threat of a court martial." Off Leia's darkening countenance, he continues, "But I will do it for you, ma’am. I promise to keep your brother safe."

Leia smiles again, more genuine than before. "No need to be so dramatic. I'm not asking you to promise to keep Luke safe; that's something you can’t guarantee. I'm only asking you to do what you are clearly excellent at - flying aircraft to strike the enemy where it hurts."

"I am at your disposal, ma’am, and endeavour not to disappoint."

Leia stands, and Poe hastens to do the same. He’s vaguely amused to see how small she is, but her handshake still threatens to crush the bones in his palm.

"That is all any of us can do regardless of the standards to which we are held accountable. I wish you luck with your conversion course, and with the rest of the war."

"And you with yours, ma’am."

. . . 

 

At Whitchurch, Poe learns that everything about the Lancaster is fucking massive. The heavy bomber is over a hundred feet in wingspan, and crews are bussed out to the aircraft’s apron; very different to rolling off a mess stool and into a Spitfire cockpit. In the first excessively long take-off run to get the cow off the ground, at least three times what it would have taken a spit to leap into the air, he holds his promise to Princess Leia close to his chest and just about manages not to curse the Skywalker name.

In the air, the Lanc handles like nothing Poe’s ever flown before - he misses the speed, the maneuverability, and for the first few hours it’s like relearning his limbs. But flying is flying, and soon Poe begins to appreciate her, the throaty roar of four Merlin engines, the unique satisfaction of landing seventeen tons of her. She surprises him with how prettily she can corkscrew and he learns tricks to bend her to his will, man and machine reaching an accord. He, grudgingly, begins to admire her.

Size and speed aside, the other notable novelty of the Lancaster is that he will share her insides with others. Three weeks after his meeting with Princess Leia, the conversion course is finished and Poe is sent to Dacre Airfield, home of VII Squadron, to begin operational readiness - and more importantly, to meet his crew. 

Dacre Airfield is a backwater hole of an airfield in the heart of bomber country; the Cambridgeshire plains. It is prone to fog, arctic winds, and the hangers have been hastily constructed around a pre-war old-fashioned base that lends the place a disjointed, Alice-in-Wonderland like air when compared to the neat, military boxiness of Poe’s previous base. The curious creatures lurking within include Wing Commander Solo, who, immediately on Poe arriving at the base in the morning, calls him to his office.

“Welcome aboard, hotshot.” Solo says, not sitting. His accent is American, and he wears the queen’s uniform jauntily, tie absent, battledress unbuttoned at the top, but enough rings on his sleeve to get away with it. “Know what the average life expectancy is for a Bomber Boy these days?” 

“No sir.”

“Three weeks.” Solo is drinking coffee. He pours some into another non-descript mug from the chrome cafetiere on the desk, handing it to Poe without offering. 

Poe shrugs, taking the mug. “It’s a fortnight on Spits, so my odds have improved, sir.”

“Never liked knowing the odds myself.” Solo grins, a near-feral expression that would have looked devilish on a man even half his age. He points to a pile of folders on his desk. “Your crew. Ragtag bunch of lunatics, but sound enough. I’ve rounded them up for you - you can join them and air test your girl, as soon as you’ve finished your coffee.”

Poe says, “Thank you sir,” and drains the steaming mug. It’s strong as death and too hot for comfort, but he places the mug down in front of Solo empty. “Ready, sir.”

It is a cold morning and wet with it - it's May but could be winter, for all the fucks the British weather gives about the slated near-summer time. Poe can feel the fog in his lungs as he steps down from the crew transport at one of the furthest dispersal aprons. A Lancaster sits on the damp concrete - whole, but looking thoroughly broken-in, entire patches of her green-and-earth colored livery shot away. Her callsign is _B-Black_ , painted in scuffed letters on her flank. 

Six men in flying gear are ranged around _B-Black_ ’s vast front undercarriage, big enough for a man to lean against, which a couple are. Seeing them for the first time slams home what Poe has up until this moment only vaguely appreciated - what the possessive in ‘his crew’ actually means. As pilot, command of the aircraft falls to him, and where he operated as a lone wolf in a Spitfire, he’s now responsible for the entire crew compliment of seven. 

They don’t notice Poe’s arrival immediately, stay talking amongst themselves. He approaches unhurriedly, taking a few moments to observe the reality of them compared to the brief flick through he's had of their service records.

Of the two men leaning against the wheel, one is big, dark-haired, and familiar; Flying Officer Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley, his flight engineer. He spots Poe first - stands and whistles to the crew, jerking his head in Poe’s direction. Poe shared the unique misery of basic officer training with him; a kind-hearted, avuncular fellow, who consciously hides these qualities under a solid layer of caustic sarcasm. This will be Snap’s second tour on Lancasters. 

“Poe, fancy seeing you here.” Snap ignores Poe’s offered hand in favor of an exaggerated hug. “Welcome to paradise.”

Poe frees himself, just managing not to roll his eyes. So much for a dignified introduction. “Good to see you too, Snap.”

The man who Snap has been sharing _B-Black_ ’s front wheel with introduces himself as Flying Officer Ello Asty. This will be his second tour operating as a sparks, which Poe has learnt means wireless radio operator. He greets Poe with a cool politeness, and Poe clocks his assessing look. Poe’s notoriety from the Times article has followed him.

The rear and mid-upper gunners are a fairly matched pair; a Scot, Pilot Officer Niv Lek, and an RCAF loan in the form of Second Lieutenant John Bastian. First tour apiece. They appear close to Poe’s age; a few years older than the bomb aimer, who will also man the front gunning station - a round-faced, shockingly ginger recent training graduate by the name of Bobby Bertram. Bertram takes his cue to greet Poe with a simple nod and ‘sir’ from the other gunners, although he sounds more nervous than either Lek or Bastian.

At the end of the line is the navigator, Squadron Leader George Luke Skywalker, HRH, the source of so much upheaval in Poe’s life. Skywalker greets him with a friendly smile under eyes as bright as Leia’s were dark. He is remarkably unremarkable in person - the same flying layers as everyone else, slightly older than Snap, accent not noticeably posher than Bertam’s. His breeding is shown by the way he removes his flying gloves to shake Poe’s hand. 

Greetings over, the crew gathers expectantly. After taking a moment to clear his throat, Poe begins to brief them. 

“Chaps, just a training flight this morning, to see what’s what. Snap, I want a full report on the engines, anything you want tweaking before the next outing. Asty, cycle all the major frequencies - make sure we’re able to pick up Glenn Miller playing live in New York. Gunners - check you’ve got full travel on your weapons and note your sight settings. Bomb aimer -”

“BB. We’re going to call him BB.” Only Snap is confident enough to interrupt in such a manner, underscoring the point by briefly capturing the junior officer in a headlock. The kid looks scandalised, and the gunners guffaw. 

Poe continues firmly, and Bastian and Lek fall silent. “We’re going to do a simulated bombing run. You know the pig farm about twenty k from here?” Both BB and Skywalker nod. “Guide us in, and thwack it like it’s Berlin. We’re not going to drop anything, but I want you get us into position as if I wanted to wipe it from the planet.” 

Poe turns to Skywalker, who’s listening eagerly. “Navigator, show me the local area. And show me you know it well enough to bring us back in in the dark, under fire, with bits hanging off us.”

Skywalker blinks, perhaps at being talked to so frankly, but then he nods. Poe watches his face for any sign that Poe has addressed him wrongly; he should have asked Solo when he had the chance if simply ‘Skywalker’ was for any reasons inappropriate, but then Poe remembers that in the air, in enemy territory and being shot at, no-one will much care. 

They climb aboard, _B-Black_ gently moving as their weight is distributed to the various stations. As Poe climbs into the cockpit, he ticks them off mentally; Niv Lek mans the aft most machine gun, John Bastian in another situated halfway up the Lanc’s fuselage. Just in front of Bastian is the radio tower, Asty’s domain. Behind the pilot’s seat is Snap at the engineer’s station, and Skywalker shares forward visibility of the cockpit with Poe, settling in next to him with charts out before Poe is fully strapped in. 

They take off into the grey murk, breaking into stunning sunlight above the cloud layer. For all the clowning Snap did on the ground, he is deadly serious about the engines - Poe can hear him tutting at the state they are in, his silence indicating he his making a comprehensive list of improvements.

During the simulated bombing run BB stumbles over the fine commands that would guide Poe over the target, and the first Poe declares a miss, seeing that they are well wide of the pig shed. He does a wingover to reverse course, and Skywalker gives reciprocal headings in the proper procedure for a missed target run. Without being asked he reconfirms the navigational markers for BB, no hint of judgement in his voice. The second run Poe’s satisfied is accurate enough to have been a hit, the pig barn passing squarely beneath their bomb bay.

The gunners whoop like football hooligans. They’ve already developed a rapport beyond the trade commanilty, keeping up a near constant stream of bullshit on the internal comms, mostly to each other, as if forgetting that they’re wired into the whole crew. Asty tries to keep discipline, shutting them up with a spectacularly profane put down when they interrupt a conversation between him and Poe. 

Poe sees Skywalker, seated next to Poe, bite down a smile at the exchange. 

The sortie runs for another hour, Poe letting the crew work together, noting strengths, weaknesses, before calling it a day. On the way back in he corkscrews her unexpectedly, laughs with Snap and then at Skywalker as the charts go flying, Skywalker having failed to secure them properly, and the rest of the crew alternately laughs and curses. Everyone pretends they didn’t hear the undignified squeak that had definitely come from BB’s compartment in the front.

“Fuck me, skipper,” Snap remarks laconically, “You’re not flying a fucking fighter plane now. Don’t rip the bloody wings off before we’ve even taken her to Germany.”

The word ‘skipper’ - the first time Poe has heard it aloud - makes him pause for a moment. He clears his throat. “Alright, gents. That really is it. Asty, radio base, tell them we’re coming in, and tell them to get the beers lined up.”

“Aye skip.” Asty’s reply is without hesitation, and Poe flies an easy, lazy circuit into Dacre Airfield, basking in the easy exchange of the crew on the internal comms.

After a debrief, there’s not enough of the working day left to justify not heading to the bar. Poe frowns slightly when Skywalker goes for an orange and lemonade, eschewing the alcohol that even BB tucked into with traditional gusto of any self respecting airman. Snap notices this too, gives Poe an old-fashioned look over Skywalker’s head.

In the couple of days that follow before their next training sortie, Poe spends time with his crew on the ground. He watches as Lek and Bastian take BB somewhat forcefully under their wing, making it their mission to teach the younger man the ways of the world, in everything from gunnery to nudie mags to drinking. Asty continues to just about keep them in line, when he can be bothered to look up from his perpetual crosswords. 

Poe falls back into his old routine of shittalking with Snap, listening carefully for the nuggets of wisdom from Snap’s first tour, sparsely interspersed as they are in Snap’s generally irreverent attitude to the rest of the world. That includes their royal navigator, who takes Snap’s ribbing with laughing good-naturedness. Poe, in the rush of putting a new crew together, can go hours without remembering that Skywalker’s face is one he saw everyday on on his mother’s tea mug. Just as Poe becomes ‘skipper’ and actual rank is made irrelevant, so the prince becomes simply Skywalker. 

After a couple of days this appears to be true for the rest of the squadron. There’s still the occasional double glance, and some wag replaces the entire mess’ mug supply with those bearing the Skywalker house coat of arms, but Skywalker’s everyman demeanor fails to lend itself to whatever royal stereotype people expected. 

Wing Commander Solo is also effective at dispelling any mystique that may have surrounded the Prince, treating Skywalker with the same amount of respect he seemed to afford his own lofty rank and station: surprisingly little. Skywalker and Solo are obviously close, however; Poe has seen Skywalker emerge from the boss's office on many an occasion, as if preferring to drink from Solo's personal coffee stash rather than risk the swill the Mess has on offer, and Skywalker is the only human that can get within ten feet of Solo’s hideous cat, Chewie, without a mauling. 

Solo runs the VII with the loosest reign Poe has ever come across in leadership, playing fast and loose with the majority of the military bullshit that didn’t relate to flying - he doesn’t parade for inspection, laughs uproariously at alcohol-related infractions rather than dishing out punishment, but busts a Flight Lefty down to Pilot Officer for getting a little too handsy with a WAAF driver. If it wasn’t for his adjutant, Squadron Leader Antilles, picking up the disciplinary slack, Poe reckons the squadron would’ve ceased to function years ago. 

Solo sends the crew of _B-Black_ out against R-Rogue, a Lancaster skippered by Squadron Leader Antilles, in a gunnery competition. If B-Black wins, they’ll go operational. Poe notes the look that passes between Skywalker and Antilles; one of familiarity, but also challenge. No-one cheers harder than Skywalker, not even the elated gunners, when they score the highest target that even Antilles’s ace crew had missed. 

Solo makes good on his promise, and _B-Black_ appears on the battle order for their first mission to Germany.

. . .

Later, Poe will only remember a blur of everything before take-off. They are told the target and preparations for the raid go down amidst mounting tension and falling dark. It comes to a head as they line up for departure.

The gunners are absolutely silent with what Poe is certain is raw fear. He feels the adrenaline himself; knows it will pass as soon as he opens the engines to full throttle, and they get going, but sitting on the runway, five tons of high explosives under their arses and the unwelcoming night sky above - it doesn’t feel good.

Trusty Snap, who, after a few moments pass in silence like this, draws breath and shrills in a high falsetto voice a very decent impression of Gracie Fields - “Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye, here we go, cheerio, on my way.” Then, in his normal voice, “Oh, buck up, you lot. We’ll be home for tea and medals and you can all lie-in tomorrow.”

The crew are laughing, the tension broken, and Poe spares Snap an appreciative glance. Swivelling back around he catches Skywalker’s, blue eyes reflecting the runway lights. He smiles briefly at Poe before looking away and down at his navigational charts. Dacre Tower clears them for take-off, and Poe busies himself getting over twenty tons of bomber, kit and crew off the runway.

This mission is a multi-wing hosing-down of Berlin. The stream on the way out is densely packed, and Poe is astounded by the sight of what he knows are nearly two hundred aircraft that gather over the target; Lancasters, Blenheims, Pathfinders, assorted fighter escorts. 

They have been briefed for at least three rounds of enemy battery guns outside the target. The first time they see flak bursts, Poe feels Skywalker next to him jump violently; his own instincts have been honed in the spitfire not to bolt at enemy fire, but it’s a rude awakening for anyone else. The second time, Skywalker doesn’t move, just gives Poe a heading adjustment to steer between the suspected location of the ground guns.

They dump their incendiary load over the target indicators, BB whistling grimly to himself after calling “bombs away”. Poe dives into a left descending turn, breaking the flat course he's held for the bombing run and turning a rough one-eighty with the rest of the aircraft in the homeward stream. There’s a change in how the aircraft’s handling, having lost so much weight - a tiny gravity shift that Poe feels in the very pit of his stomach, a feeling that intensifies as he considers exactly what he’s just done; bombed a city, when a mere six weeks ago he had been one of the fighters shooting down inbound bombers to Britain.

He’s distracted from this thought by another swathe of flak bursts that end in echoey thuds Poe can feel through the aircraft controls. He banks sharply, into another wingover that changes their course and profile rapidly, hoping to get lost in the general melee of returning bombers. He tests the aircraft’s flight controls; she responds normally, but there’s damage somewhere. It's not catastrophic yet, but the holes in the Lancaster’s outer layers, exposed to the airstream, are making the airframe shriek.

“Skipper, Sparks.” Asty calls on the radio. “Reports of heavy nachtjager activity. Everyone keep your eyes skinned.”

Poe misses the babble of the gunners, and can’t feel the swing of their guns. Poe doesn’t blame them for the nerves - the gunners and sparks are in their own compartments in the aircraft, alone where the cockpit crew at least have each other. Nevertheless, they need to focus - the gunners can see where Poe can’t. Poe gets on the comms.

“Don't let those thugs scare you. If you see one, shoot straight at the bastard.”

He feels the guns begin to move again, Lek, Bastian and BB settling back into a scan cycle. After their manoeuvres Poe wants to be sure they’re still pointed at home. He spares a glance at Skywalker next to him. In the grey light of the cockpit, he appears unfussed, and giving the heading without hesitation when Poe asks.

They make it to the German border before it all goes to shit. Skywalker is halfway through giving a course for the Dutch coast, when Lek interrupts - "Contact left! Corkscrew, skipper!"

Poe moves the controls sharply, dropping height in a particularly vicious near-spin. He sees Skywalker brace himself, barely moving in his seat, and holds the manoeuvre for three spins before rolling out level again. He's lost maybe four hundred feet in height, doesn’t dare lose any more with the sky this densely packed with bombers and fighters alike. 

Just as he’s beginning to breathe again, enemy 109s pass to starboard, spitting tracer fire on another Lanc. Poe follows their progress, getting ready to corkscrew again, and suddenly the world goes white, pervasive and violent as the targeted Lancaster explodes, shockwaves rippling over them.

The light fades to nothing, for Poe. He blinks, once, twice, trying to clear his vision.

"Holy shit, was that Furillo’s crew?" Lek blurts, scared.

"Skipper?" Skywalker's voice comes from next to him, quiet but the clearest thing he can hear, even amongst the howling of the aircraft and his crew's nervous call and response as they check everyone's status. "Are you all right?"

Poe checks. He can still feel his hands, his legs, can still feel _B-Black_ through the stick. "I can't..." he licks his lips, gutted by anxiety. "I can't see."

He admits it calmly, but he can feel something like panic crowding the back of his throat. He’s blind and flying an aircraft- an unholy and unnatural state. A visceral pain punches in behind his eyelids before settling into a throb. 

There are a few moments of quiet, in which Poe just holds the yoke without moving. Skywalker shifts and Poe flinches, hearing him suddenly close. "You're alright, skipper. Just a bit of flash blindness - you must have been looking straight at it when that Lanc blew."

Behind them, Snap has clocked Poe’s incapacitation. "What are we going to do?" His tone is purely interrogative, professionalism working the problem.

"We've got it," Skywalker says, a commanding note to his voice. Then, lower, just for Poe - "I've got you."

In any other situation, Poe would've had a very smart reply to that. As it was, he swallows, and says, "If you keep talking...that will help."

"Best pilot in the Air Force, right?" Skywalker laughs, but it’s not meant unkindly. Poe feels a hand on his shoulder that doesn’t move. "Right then. We need to change heading by twenty-four degrees to starboard. Bank her to the right? Good, good. Okay roll out - now." 

It feels so wrong to move the aircraft with no sight, but there's Skywalker's hand on his shoulder, his voice in his ear. It doesn't make up for the lack of sight, or the unsteadiness of the controls in his hand as the damage to the aircraft threatens her stability, but he has a crew to fucking get home. 

Skywalker talks constantly about the aircraft’s height, speed, stability, pausing only to crosscheck the charts against the instruments. They somehow split the controls between them - it turns out Skywalker knows his way around around the instrument panel. Poe laughs at himself, an unexpected, maybe hysterical noise.

"What is it?" Skywalker sounds startled. 

"You." Poe says. "I was just thinking, if navigating flyboys and swanning around in castles doesn't work out for you, you could have a passable career as a radio personality." 

There is the longest silence there's been so far since Poe lost his sight. He can imagine Skywalker's face, though - his peculiar nose wrinkling in thought. "Your opinion is noted, Flight Lieutenant," Skywalker says eventually. A lightness there, though, and Poe has to catch himself from giggling. Some part of his brain begins to believe this might be alright.

Instead, just as they pass Dover, Snap announces, "We're losing fuel, skip."

Lek opines, "Fuck me." 

They’re leaking flammable fuel; home territory means no-one’s actively shooting at them any more, but any rogue flak, some thick-as-pigshit battery gunner with a nervous trigger finger, and they’ll be one spectacular own goal.

"Okay." Poe takes a breath - Skywalker’s hand stays steady on his shoulder. "What's our distance to home? How fast are we?"

"Fifteen minutes to touchdown. We're a shade under one eighty knots," Skywalker says. Poe guesses he's doing some dirty maths. "We'll make home."

"If we don’t explode first." Bastian notes grimly. 

"If anyone wants to bail, it won't be held against them." They've kept Poe's blindness confined to the cockpit, but they've had one very graphic example of what an exploding aircraft looks like. Better to jump out now, while the aircraft is still somewhat stable. 

Skywalker's hand tightens on Poe's shoulder. 

"Nah, we're with you, skipper." Bastian says. Affirmative sounds go up from the rest of the crew. 

Their first mission into the Reich; they’ve just watched another aircraft go up like a roman candle, their own has holes in it and is leaking fuel, and not one man’s voice waivers. Poe can’t tell them that they’re lining up for a landing on his hands by Skywalker’s eyes, but at the surety in their voices, he draws his first deep breath in nearly three hundred miles. 

"Alright. You're all bloody mad, but alright. Sparks, radio base - we’re inbound, long finals. Get us runway priority." To Skywalker, he says, "Right. Here’s how we’re going to do this.”

Between muscle memory and Skywalker's clear voice, calling height and roll, there’s a touchdown, and as soon as he feels the aircraft settle Poe applies the brakes as quick as he dares, stopping her what he guesses is short on the runway furthest away from everything else.

Snap shuts down the engines as he calls for the crew to get the fuck off the aircraft. Latent adrenaline floods Poe’s system, and he starts shaking, hard - he listens to the crew leaving, the gunners climbing down from their positions, Asty making sure BB is out. Skywalker stays at Poe’s shoulder, for the first time in nearly two hours not talking. 

Through chattering teeth, Poe says, "That wasn't bad, Squadron Leader."

"I think, under the circumstances, ‘Luke’ should suffice." Skywalker sounds nearly hoarse, voice deeper than Poe is used to. "Let's get you out."

Poe is suddenly aware of the breeze around him, coming from the open hatches. Skywalker guides Poe's hands to his own shoulders and leads them carefully but quickly from the cramped space of the cockpit. They jump together into the grass, landing in a heap, Skywalker up first, pulling Poe insistently. They are the last ones out - Poe can hear Asty and Snap herding the excited gunners away from the aircraft, and he can smell the fuel himself now. He doesn’t hesitate when Skywalker takes his hand.

_B-Black_ proves herself a proper bitch, in the end. But at the least she lets them run clear before lighting up. 

Skywalker stops, mid-run, and Poe feels himself pulled into Skywalker's body, Skywalker's hand on the back of his still aching head. He’s grateful for the contact, disorientated by the force of the explosion and the press of bodies as the crew instinctively huddle together. The noise lessens into the crackle of a fire.

“Well,” Lek’s voice sounds loud and close, after a few moments of shocked quiet from them all. “You don’t see that every day. What’s wrong with the skipper?”

. . .

Under the medical bay Poe resumes being able to distinguish light from dark; Dr. Kalonia pronounces flash blindness and he’s put to bed. He sleeps fitfully through the day, his vision coming back improved every time he startles awake. It’s a disorientating morning, then afternoon, curled into the bunk, smelling burning aircraft and missing the warmth of Skywalker and the crew around him, still hearing the flat boom of the fuel tanks going up.

When he can read every line on the chart Kalonia releases him straight to what he expects to be a wall-to-wall bollocking from Wing Commander Solo. 

Solo is sitting in his office backdropped by the late afternoon sun. He indicates wordlessly that Poe should sit, before launching in,"It's a fucking pain in my ass, Dameron. You came highly recommended from Deso - he didn't mention that you had this capacity for making such a colossal mess." Solo, Poe is learning, is not one for conventional volume if something could be delivered at multi-decibels. The mid-Atlantic accent, Hollywood-esque charm strangled by years of English exposure, grates on his ears, not helping the headache that has lingered from the night before.

"Yes sir," Poe says, when the silence stretches beyond a natural point of reply. The bollocking is unstructured, aimless in its delivery; as if Solo lacks either the knowledge or impetus to deliver it as an officer’s manual would dictate, but is under the impression that he should in some way say something to the pilot that had got a Lancaster all the way home just to explode it on his airfield. 

Solo draws breath for another volley, but he is distracted by his pet murderer arriving on his desk, squat paws leaving questionable marks on the paperwork spread across the surface. It yowls at Poe. Solo points at it. "Chewie agrees with me."

"Sir." Poe says again. He wonders, not for the first time since fetching up in the squadron, exactly what level of mental affliction Solo is operating at, but maybe that’s just what happens, pining after a royal for nigh on twelve years.

"Chewie also thinks you're a fucking idiot for flying blinded," Solo continues. He holds a hand out, lets the vile creature stroke himself against it.

This time the smart answer gets the best of him, and he descends to Solo’s level. "With all due respect, sir - I'm surprised Chewie is an authority on the subject."

"Chewie knows everything. But - no need to defend yourself to me," Solo continues. "I'm bloody impressed."

Poe makes eye contact this time, drawing his attention from the filthy cat. "Sir?"

"I mean, yes, we could've done without the theatrics on landing, but the way Luke tells it, what you did was little short of some fucking miracle, putting down that damaged Lancaster like you did. I've done some stupid shit in my time, kid, but that takes the biscuit."

Poe is momentarily spellbound by the use of Skywalker's first name, the unexpected naked compliment. It sounds more genuine than the earlier attempt at a ticking off.

"Thank you, sir, but it was down to Squadron Leader Skywalker. He..." Poe struggles to describe what Skywalker did. "He held the cockpit together, in very difficult circumstances."

"He's got to have some uses, that kid. Your flight enge wants you written up for gongs.”

"I won't hold my breath, sir."

Solo sneers, jovially. "I reckon you have the capacity to be quite a mad bastard, Dameron. Let's see if you can top this particular show."

Poe blinks, wanting to remark in kind, but Solo has too many rings on sleeve for that. He asks instead, "Where's my crew, sir?"

"Bit of crash leave. Forty-eight, from yesterday, while we get you another kite in. You owe Luke a drink - the kid's fond of hot chocolate, as you’d better save the whiskey for a seventy-two. He's not as young as he used to be."

"Hot chocolate, sir," Poe repeats, dully. "Wilco."

"Naff off, then." 

The drink suggestion is the closest thing that Poe has received to an order, so he will bloody well follow it, the rest of the day lacking any other structure. Plus he hasn’t seen any of the crew since he'd been bundled into the meat wagon after the death of _B-Black_ , what he’s guessing is nearly twelve hours ago.

He finds most of them in the scruffs bar, the only communal area informal enough to allow the disarray he finds them in. BB is on the floor, his head pillowed on his arms in slumber. Asty is attempting to play cards with Snap, who appears to be spacing out to the window. Bastian and Lek are asleep on the worn sofa at opposite ends.

Poe takes in in the arrangement - his crew, his responsibility, and fuck but last night had been a close run thing. He quashes the sobering thought and crosses the room in four strides, and nudging BB in the side with his boot, clearing his throat.

BB starts awake, peering up at him. "Skipper!"

At the exclamation, he has the entire crew's attention and fends off the general well wishing with, "What that fuck are you lot still doing here? Boss just told me we've been on leave since yesterday."

"You were still with the sawbones, innit." Snap yawns. "We were waiting to see if we needed a new skipper, as well as a new kite."

Poe snorts. "Oh, well, I am touched. As you can see, all in one piece, and yes, I can see your ugly mugs again." He counts them. "Where's the nav?"

Snap nods to the window he’s staring out of, scrunching his face in disgust. "Second lap of the peri-track. He's with that nutter from R-Rogue."

"Right," Poe nods his thanks. Scruffs bar meant tea is attended to by oneself, rather than a mess boy, and Poe prepares a round from the enormous urn, feeling like mum as much as skipper to the miscreants who nonetheless thank him warmly. Asty even glances up from his hand, making eye contact with Poe and saying, “Nice job, skip.”

The round hides Poe’s surreptitious brewing of hot chocolate, and, tea distributed, he slips through the side door connecting the bar to a small patio overlooking the airfield.

The outside air hits him square on. He looks to the peri-track, expecting to see Squadron Leaders Skywalker and Antilles taking a stately walk, as if to dispel the cabin fever Poe certainly feels after more than four hours inside a building.

He spots two distant figures, crossing white in front of the black mouth of a hangar, and moving too fast for a walk. Fucking jogging. 

A pair of jumpers sit on the small picnic table on the patio, and Poe resolves to wait for Skywalker and Antilles to get back, enjoying the crisp air too much. He starts on the first mug of hot chocolate leaning against the picnic table, hoping that Solo wasn’t having him on about Skywalker’s penchant for the stuff. Luke, he reminds himself. After last night, it’s definitely bloody Luke.

The remaining mug is basically cold when Luke and Antilles finish. Poe watches them come closer, slowing to a walk. Both are sweating, flushed in the late afternoon light.

"Skipper!" Luke says, face breaking into a ruddy smile. "I trust you're feeling better?"

"Better than you." Poe nods, at where Luke has put his hands on his knees to get his breath back. 

Antilles is also breathing hard, but stays standing straight. He's a tall bastard with a stately, almost sniffy air. "Dameron.” Antilles nods. “Sounds like you had something of a do, yesterday." 

"You could say that." Poe tries for a charming smile, an assault that falls flat at Antilles’ frankly assessing stare.

Poe regards him in return. Antilles is one of Luke’s contemporaries, and he’s gathered they have a friendship stretching from before Luke’s assignment to Dacre. He would suspect conspiracy if he didn’t already know the Princess’ lack of shamefacedness when it came to assignments. 

Antilles’s crew is halfway through their tour, and Antilles has earned them the moniker ‘The Hedge Trimmers’ for repeated heinously low-level flying stunts. It’s somewhat at odds with the man before him, whose aristocratic air would certainly make him the likelier candidate between him and and Luke for being the Prince, were someone challenged to choose between them.

Antilles gaze isn’t completely hostile, but cool enough for Poe’s smart comment about old men on the squadron out on the exercise to die in its wake. 

Poe feels spectacularly silly holding out the cold mug of hot chocolate. 

“I was told,” he says to Luke, assiduously avoiding Antilles’s eyeline, “that you were rather fond of this.”

Luke takes the mug with curiosity, turning to surprised delight as he realises it isn’t tea. Antilles raises an eyebrow.

“There’s tea,” Poe says to Antilles. “Inside.” Always difficult telling your superiors - in social station as well as rank, Poe’s beginning to suspect, Antilles has public school dickhead all over him - to fuck off politely.

Antilles raises the other eyebrow. Message received. “Good airing out,” He says to Luke, as he retrieves one of the two jumpers on the table. “I’m for a shower. Enjoy your infant’s drink.”

Luke sketches a salute at Antilles with the mug, who looks for a moment like he wants to return with a two fingered version. Instead, nodding at Poe a final goodbye, he starts towards the bar door.

Poe is left alone with Luke, the airfield stretching before them and the buildings of the base behind. The effect is head-swimming, normally being surrounded the rowdy crew or pressed into the Lanc cockpit. 

“With all due respect,” Poe asks. “Running?”

“Wedge and I are used to training together. Fencing,” Luke clarifies, off Poe’s questioning expression. That rings a bell to Poe - he remembers vaguely there had been a mild media furore when the prince had competed at the ‘32 Olympic Games. 

Poe is momentarily distracted by watching Skywalker’s lips on the rim of the mug. Sweat has drenched some of the blond in his fringe dark, spread across his forehead. Poe is further distracted to realise that Luke even has a fringe, something he guesses is normally combed into submission each morning. 

He realises Luke has caught him looking, an amused spark in his eyes, so he clears his throat. “Thank you, for what you did last night.”

Luke immediately shakes his head, brows tightening slightly. “Nothing to thank me for. And we did it together.”

Poe scratches the back of his head. Something in his throat wants to say more - to try and express what had happened last night, the primal fear Poe had felt, Luke’s voice a beacon in the darkness. Instead, he makes an effort to meet Luke’s eye, and pushes his mug against Luke’s. “Fair enough. But thank you anyway - I can’t imagine it was what you signed up for when you transferred from Whitehall.”

A shadow passes across Luke’s face, so quick Poe isn’t entirely sure he’s seen it. “It was, more or less, exactly what I signed up for.” A brief pause, before he admits, “Maybe not what I envisioned, possibly.”

“Me neither,” Poe deadpans. They both laugh, and Poe finishes his mug before going on, “You know your way around an aeroplane, then?”

Luke shrugs. “Han did some flying with me. Rather fancied a pilot slot, but I was convinced it was a younger man's game."

Poe says, "A madder man's game, maybe.”

“Han is testament to that sentiment.”

“Too fucking right.” Poe says. He casts a side-eye to see how the curse lands - Luke appears to ignore it, beginning to stretch against the picnic table. “I think he was trying to bollock me earlier but honestly couldn’t tell. He’s your mate, then?”

“Yes.” It is said without hesitation, but then Luke appears to consider. “Han is...close to my sister. I’m sure you’ve heard all the rumours.”

Poe considers his response as he pulls a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket. The moment feels intimate enough to for him to ask, “Your sister has him stationed him here to clean up his act?”

“Leia seems to think this is a good compromise between letting us be useful and keeping an eye on us, and yes - Han doing a respectable job won’t do any harm.”

An odd note in Luke’s voice, on the ‘be useful’, but Poe sticks with the more immediately interesting. “He really used to be a smuggler?”

Luke just smiles, serenely. Then he nods at Poe’s cigarette. “Could I have one, if you’ve spare?”

Poe passes over the packet and a lighter, watches Luke lift a fag without the unconsciousness slickness of habit. Luke misses the lighter on the first go - then again, catching it on the third.

Poe can’t help smiling as he asks, "Do you smoke?"

"I rather think I do now." Luke takes a determined drag. 

Poe grins. "That's the spirit."

They smoke companionably for a few moments, looking out at the airfield, oddly lovely in the early stages of the sunset. Poe, afforded the opportunity to examine him, observes with some amusement as Luke alternates between sipping the by-now sludgy chocolate and puffing the cigarette. It should have been ridiculous, but on Luke it somehow looks acceptable.

Poe knows Luke is over the yardarm of thirty-five, but he carries the age differently to his sister. Where he saw only weight in the princess’s eyes, there was something in Luke’s face; an eagerness, or maybe just a lack of the bitterness Poe wonders if he’s beginning to have in his own, something he saw among his Spitfire-flying peers.

“Do you miss Whitehall? Your office must have been roomier than a Lanc cockpit.”

Luke replies after a moment, looking out to the airfield. “I was a miserable diplomat, and, as I discovered, a middling tactician.”

That’s a small precis of what Poe has read in Luke’s file, what he has gathered from newspapers. While Leia is emblazoned across every major piece of news about the war, Luke is barely a footnote, appearing as a minor delegate in the major conferences and later in Bomber Command. Poe wonders how much involvement Luke has had in the planning of this exact campaign - what’s driven him to leave his desk, and head into the sky, in the company of madmen. 

Luke is on the last of his cigarette. “Always been handy with maps, however. Maybe better off at the doing.”

“As your skipper, I am immeasurably glad to hear it.”

Luke pulls on the remaining jumper, carefully over the lit fag between his lips. He tugs it fastidiously into place before pushing up the sleeves, the rough military-issue wool at odds with the pale skin of his arms. The hair at his neck just brushes the collar - he’ll need a haircut soon. Poe catches a hint of Luke’s scent, sharpened by the exercise, tries to resist the temptation to take a deep breath. He shivers, involuntarily.

“Oh, sorry, skipper, you must be freezing.” Luke nods at the door to the bar. “Best get you back inside before you catch anything, having just got you out of the medical bay.”

Poe sighs. He’s definitely catching something, alright.

As if on cue, the door to the bar behind them bangs open, caught in the breeze. Snap fills the frame and bellows, “There you are. I don’t know what you did to fucking Antilles, but we’ve been challenged to a darts match by the Hedge Trimmers and need re-inforcements. Bottle of port on the losing team. Both of you, arses in here, now, and that includes you, Your Highness. No more of this fucking fruit juice nonsense - after the stunt you pulled last night, you’re going to bloody drink like a proper airman.”

“Wind your neck in, Snap,” Poe calls back. “Put the kettle on and we’ll be right there.” 

He looks at Luke, intending to apologise for Snap’s crassness, but Luke is just grinning, broader than Poe has ever seen it. He wants to see it again.

“Come on, Luke.” Poe says, trying the name aloud for the first time. He gets a warm feeling in his chest at the undisguised pleasure in Luke’s face, backlit by the darkening sky. “Time to save their backsides again.” 

. . .


	2. Part Two

. . .

A Women’s Auxiliary Air Force sergeant stands in front of the door to the mess at breakfast time, the morning they’re back on duty. She’s holding, incongruously, a small wicker hamper. Poe isn’t expecting her to address him and starts when she announces, “I’ve packed toast and tea, sir,” as the crew passes.

“I’m sorry?” Poe’s not quite awake enough yet to comprehend. He feels Luke gently bump into his shoulder as he stops suddenly. 

The sergeant looks amused. “Your new kite’s arrived. I thought you’d want to inspect her soon as, sir, so I took the liberty of packing you all breakfast.” She holds up the hand not holding the hamper, displaying a set of motor keys hanging off her thumb. 

Understanding dawns, and Poe is suddenly awake. “Thank you, Sergeant.” Quick check of her name tab — ‘J. Pava’.

They pile into the available long wheel base land rover, Sergeant Pava ignoring the brief scuffle to take the front seat next to her, which results in BB being pushed in gigglingly by Lek and Bastian. Luke, Poe and Snap fill the middle bench, with Asty dragging the gunners practically by the scruff of their necks into the back. She pulls away smoothly, accelerating as soon as they’re out of sight of the mess, swinging onto the peri-track well in excess of the airfield speed limit.

“Ride ‘em, Sarge!” Bastian calls from the back. There’s a dull thump as Asty kicks him in the shin. Pava grins at them in the rearview mirror.

Poe smiles back despite himself, sees Luke is doing the same. With Snap on the bench with them they’re sitting tightly hip to hip — he can feel Luke’s body heat through the wool of his battledress, comforting in morning chill. He can sense that Luke shares his relief to the end of the restless couple of days they’ve been subject to. They had haunted the base as a crew dispossessed, playing chess, bickering, bonding, but all feeling the lack of a plane keenly. 

A Lancaster sits on _B-Black’s_ old pan, gleaming in the early light. The tyres squeal underneath Pava’s dramatic use of the brakes — Luke lets out a surprised huff as he steadies himself against the chair in front.

“Cor blimey,” Bastian says, affecting a terrible cockney accent as he peers out of the window. “She’s spankers, sir.”

As used as _B-Black_ had first appeared, _R-Rapier_ looks as if the wrappers have just come off. The crew wander around her, letting out general noises of approval. Poe goes more cautiously, looking at what he can see of her flying surfaces. As he passes BB, the kid comments, “Prettiest thing on the apron,” beaming from underneath the bomb bay. Poe just nods, squinting up at her, before climbing on board and into the new cockpit.

He checks the instrument panel, tests the elevator and aileron controls in the yoke. He nods as Luke slips into the nav seat next to him, adjusting the chair up.

Luke seems to sense Poe’s hesitation. “She’s not to your liking?”

“No, she’s gorgeous.” Poe admits. “Just an old flying superstition — never fly anything that hasn’t got the paint scraped off the rudder pedals. Don’t fear an old aircraft; it means no-one’s managed to write her off yet. Or shoot her down.”

Luke listens to this seriously for a moment. Then, from the pocket of his flying jacket, he produces a small folded knife, holding it up for Poe’s inspection. It looks boy-scout issue, but old — he can’t quite read the cursive engraving. Then Luke stands, and, apologising neatly, reaches in front of Poe’s shins, steadying himself for a moment with a hand on Poe’s knee, to deliberately scrape a small square of green paint from the right pedal. Poe has to force himself to breathe, not entirely sure his heart rate isn’t audible. When Luke draws back, he’s holding a square of a paint in victory.

“There we go, skipper. She’s pilot-superstition compliant, now.”

Poe stares at Luke for a moment before laughing. “You daft badger.” He adds, “With all due respect.”

Luke smiles, snapping the blade shut and crumpling the paint between his fingers. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

“Am I interrupting?”

Poe swivels in his chair to see Snap, leaning into the cockpit from the engineer’s station. He’s quirked an eyebrow at Luke’s hand on Poe’s knee, and Luke nearly hits his head on the top of the cockpit as he straightens sharply.

Poe flashes a sunny smile at him. “No, Snap, all tiggerty-boo. She meet your approval?”

Snap holds Poe’s gaze for just a beat too long, before nodding once. Then he pulls a marker from the engineer’s station. “Do the honours, skip?”

The crew sign their names by the hatch, comprehensively claiming _R-Rapier_ as theirs, in order of seniority — Poe prints his full name next to ‘Skipper’, before wordlessly handing the marker to Luke. They’re all surprised when Pava gets in on the act - after BB’s excessively flourishy initials next to ‘Bombardier’, she writes ‘Jessika Pava — Sgt, Driver’, before fixing them all with a meaningful look. After a moment, they all break into happy faces and there’s clapping of shoulders and shaking of hands.

“Who’d you piss off,” Asty says, he takes her small hand in his, “to get lumbered with us lot?”

“Warrant Officer Connix,” she replies flatly. Then she brightens. “But I’m guessing you won’t be boring.”

“You got that right, little miss,” Lek says with a wink, leaning his elbow on BB’s shoulder. BB looks mortified.

There’s a movement too fast for Poe to follow, and suddenly Lek’s arm is up behind his shoulder blades as Pava says, “Go on, sir, say it again. Call me ‘little miss’ one more time.”

“Apologies, Sergeant.” Lek grinds out. Poe is just about to intervene when Pava releases him. Lek puts at least three foot between them. 

Pava grins at him charmingly. “Very good, sir. Friends again?” She proffers her hand.

Lek looks at her, astonished, before breaking into laughter. He shakes her hand again, and then begins helping her unload the toast and tea, buttering and spreading jam without fuss.

They eat the knocked up breakfast in the shadow of the new aircraft, Pava sitting between the gunners and joining in the banter with gusto. Poe stands with his back to the front undercarriage, Luke next to him, as they munch cold toast.

“Are we going to have a problem, skipper?” Luke says to him in what Poe assumes Luke imagines is sotto voce, nodding at BB, who is eyeing the sergeant with wide-eyed admiration as she holds forth about the new issue land rover.

“Harmless.” Poe assesses. “Apparently she’d break his arm, for one thing.”

“I suppose feeling of intimate affection in such close quarters would end up rather inconvenient,” Luke says guilelessly, before taking a huge bite of toast slathered in jam.

Poe freezes. His reaction is hidden by a huge glob of jam sliding from Luke’s toast to the tarmac beneath them, and they both turn to stare at it.

“There’s a song about that,” Poe says. “It’s not a very nice one.”

“I’m familiar.” Luke replies. The glob glistens wetly, before Luke toes it into the tarmac.

Poe signs for _R-Rapier_ with the engineering crew chief, a Flight Sergeant Nunb, who looks older than God — definitely ancient enough to have been patching up aircraft in the last do. “Pretty little virgin you’ve got there!” Nunb nods at _R-Rapier_. “Don’t go bringing her back full of holes!” 

Snap frowns. “Not quite sure that’s how it goes.”

The metaphors for the untested aircraft don’t stop and only get worse as they prep for their second mission. Poe’s crew have already undergone all manner of razzing for their notable first mission, which is doubled down when they’re handed the brand new kite. 

The worst offenders are the Darklighter cousins, Antilles’s navigator and flight engineer on _R-Rogue_ , who nearly set off a fire extinguisher in the mess in an elaborate gag implying _R-Rapier’s_ crew had flammable properties. Poe isn’t bothered about the notoriety, but the eagerness to establish themselves beyond the rookie status is keenly felt by all. He’s looking forward to getting an uneventful mission under their belts. “Contradiction in-fucking-terms,” Snap says, over dinner, when Poe mentions this to him. The sharpness of his words stop Poe short, and he’s grateful no-one else seems to have heard.

Solo, after a predictable crack about breaking in the new filly, puts them in the next raid on Krefeld. Despite Snap’s dour warning, it’s straightforward — minimal air-to-ground flak, Jerry caught firmly with his pants down and limited enemy resistance as they line up on the munitions factories. There is almost disappointment from the crew, an unspoken hunger for their first credited enemy fighter kill. They’re stood down, and go their separate ways to bed. 

Poe’s unable to sleep — it’s a problem he’d always had, dropping adrenaline from his system enough to sleep. He listens to the morning outside, the waking movement of airmen on base who hadn’t been on the mission, and finally concedes defeat. He rolls out of bed to write a letter home. It’s overdue.

He slits open the curtains, a beam of morning light splitting the paper in front of him.

_Dear Mum, Gran,_

_It’s six o' clock in the morning, which means us nightowls are bedding down while the rest of you start the day. Bet you anything that right now you're drinking tea out of that old mug of yours, and Gran is frying up something massive for the fieldhands. Odd how far away Devon seems from our little world here._

And there it was — the problem of how to put the realities of bomber life into something that would satisfy his mother without worrying her, a problem perennial to all children at war. He’s seen what his mother has of letters from Kes during the war — there was a lack of detail, of any actual sense of what Kes was doing. Now he understands — there are some things you don’t write home. 

This letter is no exception. He won’t talk about flying over Germany, countryside and city spreading out black beneath him before it’s alight with fire, how the sky can be every color of the spectrum, even at night. He won’t describe the smell of bombing warfare, burning cities, burning aircraft, and never more potent than the first mission, flying blind, Luke’s hand heavy on his shoulder, his voice in Poe’s ear.

So he talks about the crew, instead.

_Not to sound like Mr Briggs crowing over his spotty sixth form class, but I’m proud of how my boys are shaping up. I have a feeling that you’d like them. They can be a bit rowdy at times – I think Gran would call them ‘hardly domesticated’ – but they’re good-hearted lads._

_They’ve developed a habit of singing over the comms system when there’s not much going on. My gunners are the main offenders. I think they spend all their time off-duty glued to the wireless just so they can spout jazz when it’s too quiet on a mission. It sets everyone else off, even the radio operator – Asty’s a gruff fellow but a prime mothering hen to the younger chaps. He’d deny this, of course. As for my engineer, you’ll remember Snap from my passing-out parade – he’s already got thirty missions under his belt with another crew — hasn’t changed him a bit though I’m relieved to say. Still a mouthy cuss. (Don’t read that bit to Gran.)_

_Since I have my hands full just keeping this huge bird in the sky, navigation is another thing I don’t have to bother with – there’s a whole extra seat in the cockpit for another bloke to do it for me. A nice change of pace, that._

Poe lays down his pen at the thought of Luke. He’s spent most hours of every day in the crew’s company, and at Luke’s side, in the cockpit, airtesting or training when not on missions. He’s watched as Luke has adapted to the robust routine of an operational squadron, which for Bomber Command meant for most of the week becoming nocturnal, with sleep deprivation even on the days they’re to keep normal schedule. He’s watched tiredness settle into his face the way it had with everyone else, bringing lines into his face that humanise him beyond the popular propaganda image of the prince. As the Squadron as a whole adapted to, and then relaxed into having a royal around the teasing turned into shy, earnest requests for autographs on letters home, memorabilia, which though Luke was clearly embarrassed by signed with good grace. “Fighting the home front,” Poe commented, watching Luke sign on a letter home for Antilles’s rear gunner, “Making a legion of mums happy.” 

He won’t tell Shara the identity of his nav, in that much detail in a letter, as tickled as she would’ve been. The reality of Luke is imprinted in Poe’s thoughts — his charts in the cockpit they shared, his steady fingers when Poe teaches him how to roll tobacco, his easy laugh at even the weakest of Snap’s jokes — Poe knows, instinctively, these things are trivial, but they have become an indelible part of Poe’s world at Dacre. 

_The navigator is a decent sort of bloke_ , Poe writes, followed by a paragraph about how jolly Sgt Pava is.

. . .

Three missions down and the rookie banter from other crews dies away somewhat, the Darklighters greeting them with just a nod. In addition to the new repair patches, small target rings go up under the pilot’s window — three successful bombs on targets. “Good to see some tits on your aircraft,” Pava remarks when she drives them out to Rapier’s dispersal. “I mean, in addition to you lot.” Bastian and Lek are still giggling an hour later. Poe knows he should probably have words but it’s impossible to not forgive her irreverent attitude. She’s bloody good at feeding them, for one thing — keeps a perennial stash of tea in flasks for them in van, and is without fail waiting on the pan for them after a mission, when they need a grounded presence. 

The pre-mission routine by now feels familiar. If Luke is missing from lunch, it's a nav briefing, meaning they’re on that evening. The station is shutdown, as the target is known, and all outside communication is stopped. General brief afterwards for all crews, followed by a few hours of faff — airtest the kite after any repairs, bomb aimers to check and approve load, nav’s to plot a course in and out. An army marches on its stomach and aerial warfare being no different, the RAF waves off its gallant crews with a solid spread of real eggs, bread and butter before crew transport. Pava is indulgent of their adrenaline-fuelled bullshit, matching banter point for point, packing them on to the aircraft and seeing them off with a cheerful wave or a middle finger depending on mood. 

Sixth on their books is Merseburg. Compared to the relative calm of their last few missions, it’s a shitshow.

The bombing run over the main target is complicated by the target indicators from the Pathfinder squadron being difficult to find, and the fires started by the bombers ahead of them in the stream are disparate and spread over a large area, meaning the two-hundred odd other aircraft attacking dangerously out of sync. Poe is frustrated as BB calls too many and contradicting instructions on the approach to target, and it’s an uneasy run in — finally they’re at bombing height, and BB seems satisfied with their position. “Open bay doors.”

“Armed.” Poe confirms. A change in the airflow noise signifies the yawn of the bomb bay.

“Bombs gone.”

 _R-Rapier_ is lighter empty than _B-Black_ , and dropping several tons in a few seconds means that Newtonian’s law makes them leap. Poe catches her at the top of the jump and adds power as he puts her into a climbing turn.

“Thank God for that,” BB says, and Poe guesses he doesn’t know he’s said it. Poe’s inclined to agree. It’s turning into a clusterfuck; the Pathfinder squadron, supposedly crack navigators tasked with putting out flares over the target to guide the main force, have dropped a bollock somewhere and the markers are not what had been forecast, too many alighting the city. Confused bomb crews are taking too many runs at the target and the resulting confusion has Asty near-frantic on the external comms trying to keep other aircraft aware of their location and away. 

Thick traffic means a ponderous way out of the vicinity of the city, and the Nachtjaegars catch up to them.

They’re hit somewhere behind the cockpit and Poe slams her into a right turn —thank fuck, the flying controls respond — then without even enough time for a call and response, shouts “Bastian!”

“On it, skip!”

Poe’s seen it — a dark spot on a constant bearing against the orange glow of the cloudline over the city at their two o’ clock and at their height. He pushes the yoke and kicks the rudder, making a spin from the turn. Through nearly two revolutions he feels Bastian’s gun thunder, and there’s a sudden billowing of light in the surrounding clouds, an explosion heard over the airstream. 

Once Poe feels Bastian’s gun stop, he puts _R-Rapier_ back at straight and level. He asks down the internal comms, "Right, you claiming that?"

"I am, sir!" Bastian says, the use of 'sir' not 'skip' indicating serious business.

"I'll back that up!" Lek confirms.

Luke, next to him says; "Clear shot, skip." 

"Top stuff. Sparks, please make note, confirmed 109 destruction, 19,000 feet. Pilot Officer Lek will be claiming.”

No response from Asty. Poe repeats the order, then flips from internals to the exterior channels where Asty had been so busy trying to keep other aircraft from their position. He hears nothing but static.

"I'll go," Luke pulls his own headphones and disappears into R-Rapier's depths. 

Poe scans the skies for other bombers, extrapolating an approximate bearing for the German border. The only sound is _R-Rapier_ 's engines. The temperature has dropped and the airstream noise has changed, meaning the fuselage has been breached. 

"Skip, nav." Luke said after a few moments, on the internals. "Be advised, significant damage on the port side."

"What's Asty's status?"

"Wounded. I’m going to need to stay here." Luke sounds tense. “Suggest divert to Manston. I think I can work the radio. ” 

“Skip,” Snap says from behind him. “Are you getting any extra foot load on the left?”

Poe’s trimmed her out to stay steady, but if he releases the pressure on the pedals she tries to yaw starboard. “Trying to crab,” he replies.

“Showing intermittent power on the starboard inner,” Snap says. “I think it’s been strafed. You’re alright for the divert but I suggest shutdown within gliding range of Manston.”

Poe has never known the crew as silent as they are for the next forty minutes. Poe doesn’t like it, emphasising how it does that he’s alone in the cockpit, Luke absent from beside him; Snap is only a few feet away, closely monitoring the dodgy engine, but he misses Luke’s movements, his familiar plotting cycle next to him. Eventually the quiet becomes too much for Lek, who starts humming ‘You Always Hurt The Ones You Love’. It sounds funereal, and Snap tells him to stow it. 

A sudden shadow drawing up on their port side nearly tips Poe, nerves at max tension, into evasive maneuvers again. It’s BB who calls, “Skip, sir — I think that’s a friendly.”

Another bomber — not a Lancaster, longer in the body and with broader wings; an American Flying Fortress. As they match speed and heading, a series of coloured flares spit from the underside. “Asty says that’s the COD,” Luke confirms. Poe allows himself a tiny sigh of relief — Asty is conscious, and the colors of the day mean an ally. Knowing that Luke might not know the radio protocol, he rocks the wings gently in greeting.

“Skip, exterior channel?” Luke calls. Poe toggles to the frequency after warning the crew he was off internals. He catches the tail-end of Luke’s exchange.

“ _—seventeen out of Starkil. Looks like you’ve taken some damage?_ ” An American accent, warmth and youth evident in the unhurried, friendly tones.

“That’s correct,” Luke replies. “We’re not sure how bad it is.”

“ _You got holes in your middle third._ ”

“That we do know. We could rather do with a heading for Manston airfield.”

“ _Your navigator taking a nap?_ ”

“Something like that.” Luke replies, bleak amusement under the stress.

“ _I’ll get our guys on it._ ”

“Appreciated.”

The Flying Fortress escorts them as far as the British coast. Luke, back on the internal comms, sounds strained when he says to Poe, “Last heading from our friends say two-nine-zero; we’re five miles away. They’ve offered to guide us in.”

“Tell them thank you. We owe them a beer.”

The Flying Fortress pulls ahead and Poe throttles back to settle behind to starboard, out of her wake. When Manston’s runway lights come into view, the Fortress rocks its wings before breaking away up into the night.

After landing, Poe shuts _R-Rapier_ down in double-quick time, nearly snapping his headset cable as he rips it from his head. He’s just behind Snap as they dive rearward. 

Luke is crouched next to Asty, wearing the radio headset. He's absolutely soaked in Asty’s blood.

Medics swarm the aircraft and Asty is removed into a meat wagon faster than Poe can follow, Luke narrowly escaping being carted off as well by insisting that none of the blood on his clothing is his. Poe sees that the 109, before Lek had shredded the fucker to kingdom come, scored a significant number of holes in the fuselage. The size of them, each big enough to fit a dinner plate through, indicates that it had been close range. 

They’re an hour at Manston while local ground crews look at the strafed engine, the gaps in her. They’re bussed into to a holding building — Poe sees husks of destroyed aircraft lining the airfield perimeter, Manston being a crashpad for returning wounded bombers — and put into a room surrounded by other, shell-shocked looking crews.

There’s thin tea and no answers about Asty. They sit huddled in close chairs, adrenaline deserting them in nearly tangible waves. Poe accepts a cup of the crap tea after making sure everyone has one, unable to settle himself into sitting down. Luke refuses his, arms folded over his chest and hands tucked away. No-one has the energy for chat, with the smell of drying blood lifting from Luke’s clothing. 

Poe’s about to start asking about overnight accommodation, when a familiar face appears round the door. “You lot.” Wing Commander Solo, in a flying suit, addresses them. “Heard you had an interesting night again. We’re leaving your sparks and your plane here — I’ve got Annie out back for the rest of you, so chop chop.”

Annie is the Squadron’s transport Avro Anson. Poe doesn’t remember anything of the half hour flight home, and before he realises it they’re in the kitroom at Dacre, trying to get flying clobber off themselves, stupid with fatigue and worry and the aftermath of adrenaline. Poe watches BB fumble at his lifejacket, and moves to pull it off for the lad. 

“Thanks, skip.” 

Poe lets his hand rest on BB’s shoulder. BB is so tired it hurts just to look at him. “Get some kip now, okay? Straight to bed.”

“Sir, I — I…”

“If we hear anything about Asty, I’ll get you woken immediately. You two,” Poe nods at Bastian and Lek. “Get him back to bunks and then heads down for you both as well. Understood?”

In near perfect unison — “Yes, skip.” They leave as a trio, Lek with his arm slung over BB’s shoulder.

Poe strips his own life jacket, moving to the flying suit. He glances across to Snap, who has most of his flying gear off, down to battledress, but has stopped to frown at Luke. Luke is still standing by the door in full clobber, except for his left gauntlet. 

“You alright, highness?” Snap says, deliberately trying to get a reaction.

“I…” Luke licks his lips. Poe notices how he’s shivering, violently. “I’m not sure I can get my other glove off.”

Snap and Poe move towards him as one. Luke’s bare left hand is stained with hastily wiped blood. Poe goes for his right hand, and Luke gasps sharply as he pulls the glove off in one, quick movement. His right hand is raw with what looks like lacerations, bleeding thinly. 

Snap’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline, and Poe feels shock settle into cold fury at the sight. He moves into efficient mode. “Right, sir, let’s get you to medical bay.”

Luke flinches at the use of the word ‘sir’, but doesn’t fight them as they march him pointedly down to medical. Kalonia takes Luke off them, says a terse thanks, and then refuses them entry. 

Pava finds them wandering the halls on base, as if she’s been looking for them. Standing in the corridor, Snap gives her a quick rundown of everything that’s happened. Her brows furrow before she says, “Boss’s office. Connix will hear from Manston once they have something to say, and she’s got the keys for the Boss’s coffee stash.”

Warrant Officer Connix’s desk is in a small antechamber to Solo’s office, administration for the purposes of. She looks impeccable, despite the late hour, tasked with tracking Solo’s crews throughout the night. She’s tightlipped as they all troop before her, and says tersely,

“When I hear anything, Mr Dameron—”

At Poe’s name, Solo appears around the edge of his door, and he waves them all in. After demanding a rundown of the mission and where the fuck Luke was, he offers a box of cigars; only Pava accepts. 

For half an hour Poe and Snap passively inhale cigar smoke, while Solo gently shits them up about what he’s going to tell Princess Leia about how badly they’re taking care of her brother, presumably because it’s in marginally better taste than discussing Asty. Snap gives an appreciative growl in his throat, but it stirs something like guilt in Poe, a sharp feeling that had started when Luke had revealed he was hiding his injury. Poe begins to rehearse angry things in his head to say. Should have been seen to at Manston, but then he might have been taken away, spirited from the crew like Asty had been, and that would have been unbearable —

There’s a smart knock at the door, followed by Connix putting her head round. “Manston on the blower, sir. Flying Officer Asty reported stable.” She’s addressing all them. “Blood loss was the main worry after the surgery, but they think he’ll pull through. As for _R-Rapier_ , they’ll have her airworthy in a few days.”

“Thanks, Connix.”

Poe’s throat locks up with the relief, and he can’t talk for a moment — focuses instead on Solo's hand on Chewie's neck. The fucking thing is sitting in his lap, and purring, dumb to the human drama in the office. Snap crosses himself. When he finds his voice, Poe says,

“Can I see my navigator, sir?”

Solo's eyebrows raise slightly at the possessive, but he doesn't press, jerking his head at the door. “Drop my name to get past Dr Dragon, if you need to.”

Poe packs Snap and Pava off to bed on the way, deciding Luke doesn’t need an entire mob. Snap gives him a long look, exhaustion stamped into his face.

“Alright, skip. Let me know if you need back-up.”

Pava nods, before bidding Poe goodnight, gently steering Snap in the direction of the accommodation.

Luke is sitting on one of the beds in the medical centre. He's still in uniform, a thick blanket around his shoulders and his jacket lying next to him. Dr. Kalonia stands over a nurse, who has Luke’s right hand and a roll of bandage. Kalonia absently frowns at Poe as he enters.

"Your inbound leg was forty minutes at over fifteen thousand feet. I don't know cold it must have gotten with bits of your aircraft missing, but judging by the state of the Prince's hand, I'm willing to bet a mite frosty."

Luke’s fingers are raw and swollen, burned from exposure while working the malfunctioning, shot-up radio. His left hand sits absently on his thigh, the trousers stained. Poe’s gut squirms at the sight.

" _Rapier_ 's down some of her port flank," Poe agrees. Unsaid — “and a fucking sparks.”

Luke's barely looked up since Poe entered. Poe doesn't know what kind of number it's done on Luke, spending the homeward part of of the mission holding Asty’s guts in, his other hand freezing operating the radio. 

Kalonia appears to pick up on this too. “See him back to to his room, Dameron? Give him these if he has trouble sleeping.”

Poe looks at the small bottle that she punts him; painkillers, not a sedative. Despite her harsh words, Poe spots that she gives Luke’s shoulder a tight squeeze as she moves away. 

Luke is examining the bandaging on his fingers — he starts when Poe talks to him.

“Heard from Manston. They think Asty’s going to make it.”

Luke closes his eyes for a moment, lets out a long breath. “Thanks for telling me, Poe.” His voice is low. “Where’s Snap?”

“Sarge is seeing him off to bed. Where I’m under orders to make sure you go, right now.” Poe knows his voice sounds tight — hopes it sounds commanding.

It’s a quick walk through the bracing outside air — they can see without lamplight, dawn in full swing. Luke moves easily enough under his own steam, although Kalonia had packed him off with the blanket left around his shoulders. Poe is carrying his stained jacket. Neither make conversation, content to just listen to the sounds of their feet on the hard ground. Luke flinches at the squeak the door makes as Poe opens the main door to the Officer’s Mess.

Luke has the room at the end of the corridor assigned to _R-Rapier’s_ crew, next to Snap and three over from Poe’s own. Poe is relieved to hear, as they stop outside Luke’s room, the sound of sonorous snoring from behind Snap’s door. Despite himself he smiles, and is relieved to see Luke doing the same. He considers waking BB, but if the lad’s asleep Poe is loathe to disturb him. The positive news about Asty will keep to the morning.

Luke’s room is unlocked. Poe pushes it open, flicks the light switch, and nudges Luke through when he hesitates in the doorway. The room itself is like Luke — unprincely, the same layout as all the other rooms in the mess. Magnolia walls, a small desk, small double bunk, combined wardrobe/dresser, door to a small bathroom. Poe can’t help looking for personal touches — there aren’t many yet, a few books on the shelf, mostly on meteorology, a few that could be novels. An airchart of Europe over the desk, messily annotated.

There is ringing silence, disturbed only by the faint sound of Snap’s slumber. Luke’s eyes look pewter in the unlovely overhead light — it picks out lines in his face that Poe hadn’t noticed before, showing the stress at the corners of his mouth. It stops dead the cross words he’d been about to say about Luke hiding the burns on his hand — Luke looks exhausted, fucked. He doesn’t want to look in the mirror himself.

“Do you want some water? Any of these?” Poe shakes the small pill bottle. 

Luke looks at it uncomprehendingly, then shakes his head, once. “I’ll be fine, I think.” Despite his words he winces when he pulls the blanket from his shoulders, letting it fall into an undignified heap on the floor. His shirt is clean but his trousers are not, the thighs splattered with a dark liquid that’s drying brown.

“Well, you’re not bloody well sleeping in those.” Poe nods at the shirt, the sight of it stirring the anger from earlier. He closes the space between them. Luke reddens when Poe starts at his shirt, glancing down at his incapacitated hand, but doesn’t make any noise to stop, loosening the tie himself. Poe pulls it off completely, careful with the stiff collar around the soft skin at his neck.

Luke’s shirt off and him standing only in an undershirt, they both look at his trousers at the same time. It’s like a farce, and Poe just manages to bite back a near-hysterical giggle.

“We perhaps should’ve brought a nurse,” Luke says, unsurely.

“Oh come off it,” Poe summons the bravado from somewhere. “Don't take this the wrong way, but I’m sure they've got better things to do. Surely you have a team of royal undressers, or something? This will hardly be a novel experience for you.”

“Well.” Luke smiles thinly. “It’s been a while.”

Poe quirks a look at him — touche — and opens Luke’s trousers, a quick movement for the top button and pulling the flies. He lets Luke push them down with his good left hand, distracting himself by going to the laces on Luke’s flying boots. He notes they’re the same size as Poe’s own, and significantly more polished. He loosens the laces and moves back as Luke steps out of trousers and boots, leaning his good hand on Poe’s shoulder for support.

He keeps looking at Luke’s sorry pile of clothing, giving Luke, in just vest and underwear, the privacy to move back to the bed. Struck by a sudden urge to have the blood out of the room, Poe gathers the trousers and jacket. He opens the door, suppressing a start at the squeak as it opens, and drops the lot into the corridor, before shutting the door firmly. 

When he comes back in, Luke is sat up, blankets up to his waist, his bandaged hand lying in his lap. His eyes follow Poe’s progress around the room as Poe configures the room for sleep. It’s like shutting down an aircraft; curtains drawn across, shirt on the chair, glass of water on the bedside table. He shakes out two pills from the bottle of painkillers and puts them next to it, struck by a sudden image of Luke struggling with the bottle and only one good hand. Last stage — the light switch, by the door. He looks at Luke as he flicks it, darkening the room, dawn light coming dimly through the curtains. 

Luke says, “Thank you, skipper. Top mothering.”

Poe’s own room is less than fifteen steps away. Instead he crosses Luke’s in the near darkness and sits on the side of the bed, the idea of being alone intolerable. Luke appears not to mind; he shifts his legs obligingly to make room.

“Bad show tonight.” Poe says, after the silence beings to ring too hard in his head. It isn’t something he would have said in front of the whole crew — possibly not even in front of Snap.

Luke just nods, peering at him tiredly through the strange light. Warm tones of dawn are beginning to burn their way through the curtains, and Poe briefly laments the lack of true darkness for Luke to sleep in. 

“I’m beginning to understand we’re in for rather a long tour.” Luke says.

“Chance would be a fine thing,” Poe squints. His stomach gnaws at him — he’s desperate for something; a fag, sleep. He realises drinking the coffee with Solo earlier was a mistake; it’s made an ally of the worry in his system, his adrenaline drop nowhere near.

Luke, in comparison, is crashing, so as much as curling up on the unused side of the bed appeals, Poe stands to leave. “Sorry. You really should get some sleep.”

Luke looks up at it him. “You too.”

“Lie down.” 

Luke gives a half-smile. “I am ten years your elder, young man.”

“That’s still ‘skipper’ to you, your highness.” It’s cheeky, but it raises the other half of Luke’s smile.

Luke says, serious but soft, “You did a good job tonight, Poe.”

And fuck but that’s hard to hear, so earnest from Luke, after a night like that and a member of the crew seriously wounded. Poe replies, honestly, “So did you. Do try and lie down.” 

Luke looks like he’s about to object, then moves obligingly, good at following orders. He shifts awkwardly to lie down, putting weight on the elbow of his right hand. His next words are partially muffled by the pillow. “We’re a good team.”

Poe shuts his eyes for a moment. Then he squeezes the lump under the duvet he assumes to be Luke’s foot, and says, “Good night, nav.”

“Good night, skipper.”

. . .

Poe is back at Manston three days later, with half the crew to collect _R-Rapier_. Her engine has been replaced, the holes in her fuselage patched, a job that will be finished at Dacre. She’s airworthy but not operational. 

Asty is neither, fit for only one visitor. Poe is led to a private bed at the back of the medical centre. 

Asty appears asleep, blankets pulled up over his chest. Poe has a letter from the crew along with a bunch of grapes that are worse off for coming on the train with them from Cambridge, and a sizeable bottle of scotch. He intends to leave them both on the bedside table and slip out again, but Asty stirs.

“Skip.” His voice lacks the strength Poe is accustomed to, but his eyes focus easily enough.

“Hello.” Poe sits down on the ratty chair by the bed. He wants to reach for Asty’s hand, but one arm is hidden beneath the blanket, the other limp, attached to an IV, so he settles for an awkward wave and feels silly. “How are you feeling?”

Asty quirks an eyebrow at him. “Alive.”

“Very glad to hear it.”

“ _Rapier_?”

“On the mend. I'm here with Snap and his Princeliness to take her home, so Nunb can make her pretty again.”

A tiny nod. “Good.” Poe can see pain tighten lines in Asty’s face, as he picks his words carefully around whatever discomfort the gut wound is giving him. “How is the nav?”

“Damn sight better than you. His hand got a bit cold, but he's basically serviceable.” Snap has leant Luke a spare flying gauntlet for the short flight home, a big black number that looks incongruous but fits over the remaining bandages. 

Asty says, “I should thank him. He was...strong.”

An odd choice of words, but they resonate with Poe. It isn't an adjective you'd immediately associate with their nav, built slight and usually gentle of speech, when he isn't particularly animated about something. Poe is reminded again of what he could see of Luke’s face after landing, putting pressure on Asty’s wound with grim, unshakeable determination. Luke had stopped the catastrophic bleeding, saving Asty’s life. 

“He's a good one.” Poe says, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “You're a good crew.”

Asty smiles. An expression Poe’s not sure he's seen before, briefly wonders exactly what's in his IV. “Not your crew…” Asty splits the sentence to concentrate on breathing. “Any more.”

Asty is missing part of his arm, several foot of intestine. This is the end of his tour. Poe feels a heat behind his eyes at the words. Something like shame, and he has to break eye contact.

“Don't look so...sodding miserable.” Asty’s hand shifts in the blanket. There's something underneath his palm that he pushes toward Poe with his fingers.

Two small snapshots. The first — two little boys around a large skirt, the owner of which is out of frame. The biggest boy has Asty’s frown. The second photo, the little boy in a handsome woman’s arms, the older one missing. The remaining boy, a little older, is smiling, but the woman’s face looks more brave than happy. And suddenly it makes sense: Asty’s heavyhandedness with the gunners, keeping them in line. Trying to keep them safe. “My...wife, my boy.”

Poe looks at the photos. Something doesn’t add up. 

“We were...visiting in London. Took the boys...Drury lane.”

Bombed in 1940. Asty just waits, while Poe works it out.

“You don't have to say...anything.” Asty continues, off Poe’s expression. 

“I didn't know.” Poe says, insufficiently. He looks at Asty’s family again. Asty has lost a son, Poe a father - it’s not the same, but he understands anyway. “I'm glad you're going home to them.”

Asty says, “Nearly in one piece.” The words aren't accusatory, but Poe gets that feeling again. He covers it with,

“Johnny and Niv will be insufferable.” Poe says. “Won't be able to hear myself think with them carrying on without you.”

“Just..tell them to shut...fuck up. Keep eyes skinned.” Asty smiles again, quiet voice heavy with experience. “First crew. Hard. Not an easy...corner of the war...to fight. But...worthy. And you’re—” a long breath. “Doing a fine job. You’ll be...alright.”

Poe works his jaw, once. He does take Asty’s fingers this time, squeezing once.

“I'm sorry, for what it's worth.”

Asty frowns, a more familiar expression. “Don't. Just...one last request.”

“Anything.”

A harder cast in Asty’s eyes, still focused unerringly. 

“You… _Rapier_ ’s boys. Get drunk. Get some rest. Then...give ‘em Hell.”

Poe says, “I promise.” 

. . .

Three days later. 

"Let your education in the ways of the common people," Poe says to, as he pops the cap on a wide bottle of scrumpy, "—continue."

He pours into the variety of receptacles held out to him by the crew, who are squeezed into Poe’s room. Luke and Poe are sitting on Poe's bed, Lek on the floor, Bastian with his back to Poe's tiny desk, Snap in the chair. They have tins, plus hard liquor in tea mugs all bearing the Skywalker crest, and have moved comfortably into squiffyness.

Luke takes his mug, sniffing it delicately. "What is this?" Luke wrinkles his nose.

"That, my dear highness, is scrumpy. Made from the very finest apples of Lincombe Orchard; Dameron's finest stock."

Luke raises his eyebrows obligingly, and drinks some. "Very sweet." After another sip, "Yes, that's stronger than it looks."

Poe slaps him on the back. "That's the Dameron way! Cheers."

They go round the room, clinking glasses, before a few moments of silent imbibing. Poe finishes first and takes a moment to enjoy the sight, the crew unwinding. Solo has put them into training aircraft to keep their hand in, three sorties with a different, stand-in sparks each time. With the RAF converting to Lancasters up and down the country, specialised aircrew are proving difficult to come by, especially those trained in the Lancaster’s advanced radio and radar set-up, modelled after the B-17’s. The respite they’re grateful for, but he knows he’s not alone in checking the movement sheets to see when _R-Rapier_ is returning.

After draining at least half his mug, Luke asks, "Any particular reason why we're squeezed into your proletariat hovel, skipper, and not the mess?"

Snap replies, "Because if we're drunk before the boss spots we're sober and spare, he can't make us fly."

Luke squints. "But Rapier's still in maintenance, and we're still missing a sparks."

"He could put us in another bastard aeroplane," Snap explains. "It's not unheard of. So, with all due respect, shut the fuck up and drink your proletariat booze."

A knock at the door, which opens without prompting. BB bounces in, his tie with the knot halfway down his chest. "We're banned from the Mess," he announces, eyes glassy. "Darklighter got the crossbow out again there's three extra holes above the bar."

“Tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum?” Snap asks, meaning Gavin or Biggs.

“Can’t tell them apart.”

Poe groans. "Pub it is then. Someone telephone Pava to meet us there."

VII Squadron descends en masse upon The Eagle, a public house in the centre of Cambridge. Two rounds downrange, and Luke is examining the ceiling. Poe watches him, pleasantly humming with the alcohol — before they left they finished the bottle of Dameron moonshine between the crew, with more on top. Poe knows he’s gone ruddy with it, can feel it in his cheeks. 

"What's that?" Luke asks.

Poe follows the direction of Luke's index finger. The ceiling, from what can be seen through the general haze and falling night outside, is covered in writing."That's—"

"'EY UP, LADS," Lek bellows across the table. "Uncle Sam's lot, inbound." On cue, he and Bastian start whistling “When Johnny Came Marching Home”.

Three officers have entered the pub, wearing USAAF uniforms; two second lieutenants and a first. Poe watches as they survey the scene, the preponderance of the British fliers all varying degrees of three sheets to the wind, and check themselves a bit. The shortest officer, a dark-skinned fellow, appears to be steeling himself. He catches Wedge Antilles' eye at the bar; a mistake, as Poe is fairly certain that Antilles can beat even Chewie when it comes to face-melting scowls. The officer quickly slides away, and heads straight for the table _R-Rapier_ 's crew have commandeered. Lek and Bastian stop whistling when Poe kicks them under the table.

"Evening, chaps." Poe smiles, trying for charming. "Sorry, we appear to have rather taken over this fine establishment. Please have a seat." Poe moves Lek and Bastian along the pub bench with a jerk of his head, and a significant look. Both are eyeing the Americans with outright distrust; this is mollified when the Americans get a round in.

Introductions. "I'm Poe, Poe Dameron. I'm the skipper.” He points round the table. “Navigator, flight engineer, the musical twins there are gunners, and bomb aimer."

The officer said with a broad smile, "Lancasters! You're from Dacre Airfield, aren't you?"

Poe grins back, nodding — the USAAF officer's grin was infectious. "You lot from Starkil Airbase?"

"I'm Lieutenant Finn — this is Lieutenant Slip, and the other butter bar is Zeroes."

There’s a complicated series of handshakes over the table, around pint glasses. They do names, Luke simply giving his first and a polite, “How do you do?”

Lieutenant Finn stops, mid-shake of Luke’s hand. “You sound familiar.” 

Luke looks surprised.

“Did you say you were the navigator?” Finn asks. Luke nods. 

Poe gets there faster. “We’ve met already, haven’t we? Merseburg, four nights ago.”

“No way.” The American’s eyes go wide, before he grins. “You guys were in that shot-up Lanc?”

Snap says, “To be fair, that could refer to any number of the aircraft at Dacre. But if you mean the one sporting extra holes and his dulcet tones on the radio on the way back from the sunny Reich,” Snap jerks his head at Luke, “then guilty as charged.” Snap’s pile of drinks is significantly wider than everyone else’s, courtesy of _R-Rogue_ 's crew; he'd done an extra trip with them a favor and was calling in what he is owed. Despite this, he seems to be holding it together better than anyone else. 

“If that was you lot in the B-17 escorting us to Manston, you won’t buy another drink all evening,” Poe says.

“That was us!” Finn seems ecstatic by the revelation, as if he’s unused to the small world nature of the bombing fraternity. More slapping of backs, handshakes, and BB is immediately dispatched to the bar for additional beers and appropriate chasers. Poe lets the gunners excitedly reel off the story of the night, with emphasis on Bastian’s first kill, the belly of the beast awash with Asty’s blood, Luke’s fingers nearly falling off with frostbite. Luke smiles in the right places but Poe notices the shadow to it.

"Well, guys," Slip says, nudging Finn exaggeratedly. "We're pretty honored here. I had no idea we were saving the best pilot in the RAF that night."

Snap groans. “Come on now, no need to blow smoke up his arse. Need to fit his head inside the cockpit tomorrow and they aren’t that big on a Lancaster.”

Poe rolls his eyes. “Thanks Snap, you’re a pal.”

“You guys seem in pretty good shape. If we’d known you were from Dacre we would’ve given you a lift.” Slip says.

“Our boss came and got us. He wasn’t on the raid that night, I think he was bored.”

"Now Wing Commander Solo," Slip slaps the table. "That's a pilot's pilot. And an Indiana boy to boot. Is it true he made the Kessel run in less than—"

"Is it true he's fucking your princess?" Zero spoke up for the first time, interrupting sharply.

Poe stops short, just about managing not to close his fist where his hand sits on the table. He sees Luke flinch.

"Dear chap," Snap levels a finger Zero. "I'd ask you to watch your tongue." It is Snap's dangerous voice, which is lost on the American. 

"Aw, come on. You know we they say about British broads; under fed, over sexed, under us — _ow_."

Finn kicks him, very hard, under the table, shutting him up. "I'm sorry for my countryman, gentlemen. You, asshole," He says to Zero in a very different tone. "For that, you can get the beers."

After Zero has left grudgingly for the bar, Finn apologises again.

"It's alright," Poe says. "You wait until we start on your General Hux."

"Aww, he’s not so bad." Finn smiles. "Speaking of your royal family though, while we're doing a little mythbusting — it true you got your Prince wearing one of these old uniforms and riding around in a Lancaster like you guys ran out of carriages?"

Poe exchanges a look with Snap, sees the gunners doing the same thing. Luke, just as he takes a sip of his pint, says, "He's shorter in person."

Snap is quick to agree. “Tiny.”

"No sense of humor." Lek.

"Tragic haircut." Poe adds. 

"He's not with you guys, is he?" Finn asks, wide-eyed at these revelations. Poe distracts him by pushing a gin and tonic in front of him. 

After the next round, after which Poe's head begins to pound. He's beginning to relax, though — the atmosphere of the pub is changing, Harry Roy on the radio getting thrown over for Duke Ellington. The crowd swells with more USAAF, erks from Dacre. A truck arrives from the Waafery, containing Pava and some cohorts, including WO Connix. Poe watches with some amusement as Pava immediately buys BB a drink before he could do so for her, and BB is forced to turn his attentions on a group of giggling locals.

The crew table empties as Lek and Bastian move in on Pava’s fellow WAAFs, and Finn’s companions do the same. Snap surreptitiously detaches himself — Poe assumes he was looking to cadge more drinks, and is surprised when Snap settles down with Antilles at a neighbouring table, the two deep in conversation before they even sit down. BB shortly disappears with a land girl in tow, much to the shock of Lek and Bastian (who are singularly less successful). 

Wing Commander Solo, upon arrival, makes a beeline for Luke, hauling him to the bar to help carry drinks. Poe finds this uproariously funny, and when he’s finished laughing, realises just he and Finn are left at the table.

"As warm English beer goes," Finn is squinting at his bottle. "This isn't half bad."

"On behalf of my country, I'll accept the compliment with thanks."

"It ain't your country, it's his girl’s." Finn jerks his head at Wing Commander Solo. 

Poe rolls his eyes. “May the Lord and Saints preserve us from Prince Consort Han.” Poe swivels to look over his shoulder, at where Solo is loading Luke up with port. “Scruffy bastard. Hope the Princess has the good sense never to say ‘yes’.”

"You lot are a trip." They drink companionably, after which Finn says, "This your whole crew?"

"More or less." Poe stifles a burp. "Minus the sparks. Injured out. Not sure we’re getting a permanent replacement in a hurry, either."

"You need a sparks," Finn says thoughtfully. Then he snaps his fingers and says, with the force of someone whose mind has been cleared of complications by said warm beer and has just had a brilliant idea, " _You need a sparks!_ "

"I need a sparks," Poe echoes. The idea, like Finn's smile, is contagious. They shake on it, and Poe hopes he’ll remember the deal in the morning. Solo had pinched Bastian from the RCAF; poaching a radio operator from the USAAF would be just the thing.

Solo and Luke return with drinks. Solo had clearly started the party back at Dacre and is already in enough disarray that Finn isn’t intimidated by Solo’s RAF rank, station or reputation, and they launch into a spirited yanks-away-from-home dig at everything British. Poe knocks back gin and pretends not to hear. Eventually, Finn spots what Luke had been asking about earlier, the ceiling —

"Say, what's going on up there?"

Poe glances up at the the yellow, smoke-stained ceiling covered in writing. Thick, dense, sprawling.

"This is the The Eagle," Poe spreads his arms expansively, as if in explanation. "It's a fucking flier's pub. Crews come here, get wasted, write bollocks. Speak of the Devil —" 

Snap re-appears, the rest of the crew rounded up behind him, brandishing markers. Poe fears for the structural integrity of the table as they all clamber on, but he writes _R-Rapier’s_ registration and model followed by his signature. Even standing on the table, Luke has to stand on tiptoe to sign, with Finn standing next to him, ready to do his bit to represent the home of the brave, apparently serious about their earlier discussion. The look on his face is absolutely priceless as Luke signs in calligraphy, "Sqn. Ldr. GEORGE LUKE SKYWALKER, HRH, RAF"

The Americans need more gin to even speak to Luke again after that, and a double for Finn. Everyone joins in, and the party reaches V1 — the point at which take off can no longer safely be aborted. Poe remembers being ushered on to the small space where were neither stools nor tables, where the partner dancing had given way to amorphous throng of dancing people. He shuffles a bit to Glenn Miller's band crooning "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", and shortly after has a dire need for a fag and fresh air. 

Poe manages to find his way into the cool of the outside, fumbling in the pocket of his open jacket for packet and lighter. He stuffs a fag in his mouth, starts swearing as he patted himself for the lighter—

A flame appears in front of him, attached to a familiar hand. He winks at Luke in thanks as he cups his hand around the lighter, and inhales deeply before saying, "Is this some sort of family heirloom? You're going to tell me it's straight out of the Zulu war, or something."

"No," Luke says lightly. "Just my father's." He passes it to Poe for inspection. 

"'Anakin,'" Poe reads aloud. "'For not taking the path that I couldn't follow. All my love, P.'" He has a lot of trouble squaring that with the pictures of Queen Padme and the Prince Consort Anakin he has seen in fucking history books. "Your parents..." he says after a moment, fishing through the alcohol haze for the right words. "There's a story there." 

He knows that’s a gross euphemism, and for a moment Poe is struck by the sense of history repeating - the war that had come before this that their fathers had been in, that Luke is old enough to remember and Poe is not.

"Not the one everyone thinks they know," Luke says evenly, and puts the lighter away, his face schooled to blank in the warm light from the pub. After failing to elaborate, he continues, "I liked the cider, earlier."

Poe smiles around the cigarette, even as he pretends to be offended that Luke doesn’t remember the distinction. "It's _scrumpy_. Dad used to make it in the barn. Home made distillery — would stink up the place something terrible in the summer, and mum would complain so much — but she always got the first sip, so she was satisfied. She kept making it, after dad—” he coughs, not wanting to discuss it, finishing with, “Our local serves it now."

Luke makes an appreciative sound. "How very rustic."

Poe, without thinking, says "I'll show you, one day." Then he busies himself with the fag, avoiding Luke’s eyeline, wondering if he’s just said something egregiously stupid.

Luke says simply, "I'd like that."

Poe squints at him in the half light, the copious amounts of booze in his system swirled by the addition of tobacco. Luke doesn't look all that worse for wear, considering — brighter around the eyes, the line of his mouth looser — just relaxed.

"Are you having a good time, Luke?" he asks, after a moment.

"I'm enjoying the novelty of spending time with the crew at night and not being shot at," Luke smiles. "I rather doubt I'm going to enjoy the headache in the morning."

"Well, you're holding up bloody well for a toff whose only just discovered scrumpy." Poe catches Luke's hand in defense to the attempted smack. Before releasing it, he holds Luke's fingers, brushing his thumb over the knuckles. "How're these doing?"

Defences lowered by booze, Poe sees it again — blood still pumping wetly through flak injuries to Asty’s abdomen, arm, Luke stemming the bleeding. 

Luke carefully takes his hand back, stuffs it under his arm, the same movement he’d made in Manston. "They're fine, Poe. That was a...terrible night." Poe listens to him draw a deep breath, before, "But this is a rather better one."

As if on cue, a piano being banged by drunk people sounds discordantly from the open pub window. It is replaced by a shout, then a roar of approval over the opening bars of ‘Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition.’

Poe and Luke join the rest of the crew around Snap's playing, which scores more points for enthusiasm than musical talent. They get stuck in, arms around Finn and Slip and the rest of them, voices rising in defiance, comradeship, and herd inebriation. Poe takes the port Solo proffers to him during the chorus, the earthy taste of it hitting the back of his throat, the smell reminding him of Kes even more keenly than the scrumpy had earlier. 

It makes him miss a step, thinking of his father. This pub wasn’t Kes’s sort of place at all — too loud, in the heart of the city; Kes had relished the peace of the countryside, where he’d built his farm and his orchard with his wife. And Asty would’ve hated the party; would’ve curled up in a corner with one of his crosswords, no dancing, but not leaving the crew. 

Poe drinks himself into insensibility.

He is woken underneath a table an indiscriminate amount of time later. He wonders if he's hallucinating when he sees that the hideous Chewie is curled up into his side, purring like the clappers. Beyond that he can see Solo, passed out on his front, and it all makes sense — Chewie's intense loyalty means that the two miles from the airfield to the pub is nothing to the dedicated hunter.

It's Luke who's woken him, Luke who rolls him out from the table and guides him over Solo's prone body. Snap and Antilles are on that, Antilles toeing Solo's side before kneeling and attempting to lift the bastard.

"Do you need a hand?" Luke asks, and Poe is grateful when Antilles waves him off; Poe’s clinging to Luke to stay upright at this point. 

Luke gets him into the transport, which has Lek snoring in the passenger seat. A grinning Pava sits in the driver’s seat, hair askew, definitely not sober enough yet to drive. When Luke voices this concern, Pava jabs a pointed finger at him and says, "Just show any copper your mum on the coin."

Luke rolls his eyes, and yawns. Antilles puts Solo in rear of the land rover, throwing Chewie in after, who complains before purring again almost immediately. The day is just starting to inch over the horizon.

Poe slides his face into Luke's lap, breathes deeply the scent of Luke's uniform over his thighs, and passes out.

. . .


	3. Part Three

. . .

Bomber Command sends down the missions thick and fast, building to a steady tempo of applied pressure on the enemy. VII squadron is stretched taut as May yaws into June, summer descending in muggy days and nights that are sticky on the deck, shockingly cold at altitude. 

Spankers crew arrive with the gloss of newness looking at _R-Rapier_ , _R-Rogue_ and the rest of them with undisguised respect. On the battle order they move steadily up the board, and live as a cohesive, if occasionally dysfunctional unit, flying together, eating together, sleeping within snoring distance. Wing Commander Solo runs roughshod over the Americans as he poaches Lieutenant Finn, exploiting his relationship with Luke’s family in a bid to replace their sparks with the ‘yank from the pub’, who is astonishingly not put off by Solo looking him up and down and drawling, ‘Well, you don’t _look_ like that much of a big deal.’

Their tenth target is Hamburg, a predictably nautical flavour after Southampton and Plymouth are thumped in quick succession by enemy Heinkels. Solo flies missions slightly less regularly than other crews, in deference not just to his seniority but sheer volume of bombing experience — Solo started his career in the old Vickers Wellington bomber, before war had even been formally declared. For this particular away game, _R-Rapier_ is chalked in the lead position underneath _F-Falcon_ , Wing Commander Solo’s steed, one of only two crews from the squadron. It’s not immediately clear why they’re in such an exalted position until the meteorological forecast over the target is revealed. 

As navigator, it’s Luke’s ultimate responsibility for understanding the weather forecasts and translating that into something workable for the crew. Poe has a basic knowledge from his flying training, and knows enough to understand that the synoptic chart that Solo's nav, Fl Lt Threepio, puts up signifies only bad things. Poe doesn’t realise how bad until Luke goes quiet, and then just looks sort of shell-shocked. 

Solo outlines the mission; putting mines in one of the most heavily defended ports in the Reich. In fog predicted to be down to the deck; ten-tenths cloud. "So look on the bright side," Solo grins around a cigar. "At least they won't see us fucking coming. Luke, Dameron — you lot do a nifty number flying blind, as I recall. This is right up your alley, or, as it so happens, river. You can fly point."

Luke stands to leave the moment they’re dismissed, already unfolding his charts to refold them with the target centred, his chinograph pencil firmly between his teeth as he makes for the door. Poe knows he will spend an hour or so in seclusion with the other navigator, plotting a course and navigation waypoints, studying the route, the likely locations of enemy defence.

“He looks...perturbed,” Finn comments, looking with concern after Luke. Finn has attacked the task of embedding himself with his English comrades with gusto and determination — his accent on the radio Poe imagines still raises eyebrows from Cambridge to Germany, but it’s been enjoyable watching Finn learning the ways of this small island where he has found himself so far from home.

Finn’s notes for the Hamburg mission are, unlike Poe’s, immaculate. Under the kid's jovial and keen exterior is a sharp mind; Poe is beginning to suspect an eidetic memory, so quick has Finn taken to learning RAF radio protocol. Doesn’t do much about the tendency to talk _around_ it, and incidents of extraneous chatter on the radio has nearly tripled since Finn has sat at _R-Rapier_ 's radio tower, but Poe has endured worse this war, and he considers it a fair price for the solid addition to their team.

Poe nods, in response to Finn’s comment. “It’s always fun navigating when you can see sweet Fanny Adams. I’ll tell Pava to have a shot of scotch for him when we get back.”

Finn frowns momentarily at the remark, the reference to ‘when we get back’. Superstition is the hallmark of the modern wartime airman, and Poe notes his reaction. Finn seems to be man concerned with living in the present; not a bad instinct in these interesting times.

“”Sweet Fanny Adams.’” Finn wrinkles his nose. “That limey phonetic for ‘fuck-all’?”

“Something like that.” Poe replies, smiling. “Come on. Let’s go and sort the old girl out. Make sure the canopy’s polished so we can at least Luke can see fuck-all _clearly_ out of her.”

Luke's face is ashen when he arrives at the crew bus. On the ride out he holds a torch between his teeth, reviewing his marked-up charts, neat vectors over the Hamburg targets.

"Is that as bad as I think it is?" Bastian asks, peering at the synoptic chart over Luke’s shoulder.

"No," Luke says shortly, around the torch. "It's worse."

“What a cheerful bugger you are tonight, your madge,” Pava says into the ensuing silence. It's not a good feeling to board the old cow in, and Poe makes a note to have a word with Luke about that later.

Poe waddles _R-Rapier_ to the taxiway for the westerly runway. The usual heightened nerves shiver through the aircraft as he runs through the pre-takeoff checks with Snap, and Lek starts baiting both Finn and Bastian for having colonial heritage.

"Cut the chatter, ladies," Poe calls on the internal comms, as they line up in the queue of departing bombers. "This is going to be particularly fun this evening and I could do without the distraction."

"You know," Snap says, unheedingly, "My old skipper had a saying — only bats and twats fly in the dark. I know which one this mission will make us."

It’s not helpful. Covering covers his mic, Poe twists as far as his straps would let him to say to Snap, "If I could hit you, I would. Shut up and watch the sodding engines."

"Aye, skip." Snap remains unabashed. 

“Dacre Tower says we’re good to go, skipper.” Finn’s low voice helps them concentrate. Poe takes a deliberate breath as he aligns _R-Rapier_ with the centreline of the runway.

"All crew, cleared for departure."

Poe pushes the throttles through the gate smoothly, an eight-beat count; the opening bars to Glenn Miller's "In The Mood". As they gather speed, Snap calls "V1", then "rotate", and gravity lets go of _R-Rapier_ , into the dark sky.

The weather hits them over the channel. It becomes one of Poe's defining images of the war; the fucking great malevolent cloud sitting over Europe, a beast all itself, that swallows every single one of them as they disappear into the murk. There are only two aircraft from Solo's squadron, but between five other Lanc squadrons and a few Blenheims, Brigands and Pathfinders along for the ride, there's nearly eighty aircraft in this particular raid.

The cloud permeates the aircraft in an invisible damp — Poe can feel it even inside his gloves. Next to him, he sees Luke flex his hand in slight wonder, before returning absolutely to his charts, completely focussed. Poe can feel stress lifting from him as the entire forward visibility disappears. No ground, no stars. 

"How bloody useless do you feel right now, your madge?" Lek says. There’s an intake of breath from someone else, who could be Finn.

"Just watch our back," Luke replies, tersely. 

Just as Poe is deciding maybe Luke's military leadership graft has taken after all, a black shadow rears out of the murk in front of them, preceded by white flashes at the same frequency as tracers.

" _Skip_ —"

"On it," Poe snaps, kicking the rudder and hauling on the yoke into a right-hand corkscrew. He sees Luke's hand brace for the g-force against the bulkhead. 

The nachtjaeger fighter passes over again, close enough to rattle the airframe. Both Bastian and Lek get a bearing this time, swinging their guns and letting rip.

"Anything?" Poe asks.

"No bloody clue, skip. Can't even see the end of the sodding gun," Lev replies.

"Sparks?" Poe says to Finn.

"Intermittent, skip...nope, I think we lost him. Be advised also, I can't locate anyone else from the wing.”

Poe is grateful no-one else can really see his face. The idea that they're alone, on a bloody platter for fighters like that — the fucking job this weather is making of this mission — is not re-assuring.

Luke, next to him, says, "We're not alone."

Just as Poe is about to say something stupid, there's another rattling roar as an aircraft passes low into their proximity. It's not the whine of a fighter, but the bone-deep howl of merlin engines at full chat, familiar—

"It's a Lancaster." Luke has the freedom to check this, while Poe has his hands and feet full of _R-Rapier_ as he reflexively dives the aircraft away from the ensuing midair. 

"Fucking great," Snap remarks. "Wait, what—"

The other Lanc is following them down, mirroring the dive almost exactly, and close enough that Poe won't even attempt an evasive spin — rolling either of the wings up is liable to put it into the other Lanc's belly, they're in such tight formation.

"What the _fuck_ is he playing at?" Bastian shouts, closest to the other aircraft. 

Poe sees Luke leaning against his straps, peering up at the other aircraft. "He's signalling," He says after a moment.

Poe spares one glance from the altimetre, unwinding steadily in their rapid loss of height, to look. The landing light is flashing.

"It's morse," Luke continues. He pulls his pencil from his kneeboard, turns his notes over to a blank side, and begins scribbling. Then he laughs — one high-pitched bark; "Skip, message reads: 'STOP—BEING—A—DRAMA—QUEEN.'"

As if on cue, the other aircraft breaks the dive. Poe does the same, but not without putting another hundred feet vertical separation between them.

"So it's a friendly—that was some colossally lunatic flying. We're down at fucking twelve thou," Poe says, feeling cold sweat in the small of his back. "Everyone all right?"

Affirmative sounds from the rest of the crew, some more disgruntled than others. BB remarks quietly that he'd prefer if they didn't do that again, carrying several hundred thousand pounds of sea mines as they are.

The other Lanc is signalling again; Luke reads, "'R-RAPIER—F-FALCON—SPARKS/RADIO U/S—STOP'"

"God, it's only the shagging boss," Snap says. "Don't fly underneath the _Falcon_ , skip. Bits might fall off."

Poe opens the engines to full, putting her into a climbing turn to draw level with _F-Falcon_. In the thick cloud cover, he positions the wingtips so that they overlap, the only way to get close enough for decent communication. He just hopes Solo isn't mad enough to accelerate.

"I can see the Aldis lamp," Finn reports. The flashes are smaller, but less ponderous than the landing light. Finn reads down the comms, "'THIS—IS—A—SHOWER—OF—SHITE'"

"Finn, signal 'Agreed', and ask for confirmation of the rest of the wing." Poe orders.

"'YOU'RE—THE—ONLY—OTHER—BUGGER—WE'VE—FOUND’"

"Please acknowledge." Poe lets out a breath. This could be endgame. What a fucking waste of —

He senses Luke is thinking something similar — the colour in his eyes is dull in the cloudlight, and although Poe can only see half his face from the oxygen mask, he can guess that Luke's feeling the same.

"'BE—ADVISED—CALLING—BULLSHIT—RTB—REPEAT—RTB"

Giant balls-up. Both crews returning to base with full loads and the mission called before they're even that far into Germany.

"Nav," he addresses Luke, keeping his words clipped. "Plot us a course back to English coast."

Luke is looking at the charts again, crosschecking against a compass. He's also looking at the flying controls; altimetre, DI, artificial horizon— 

"Skipper." Luke says, firmly. When nothing follows, Poe gives him a glance.

Luke's eyes have taken on a different light — from the dull resignation of before, Poe saw — engagement. Something like excitement.

"Skipper, descend ten thousand. Signal Han to follow us."

Luke's voice through the static-ing comms holds a conviction that is unmistakeable. Poe hears more than just the acquired arrogance of officer training, the surety of royal breeding — he hears the unshakeable faith of someone who is convinced he was right, just because he is.

Poe covers his mic, off the internal comms. He shouts at Luke, "What?"

Luke actually undoes his oxygen mask, so Poe can see his mouth. He says, "Trust me."

Later, Poe thinks he won’t ever understand how Luke did it. How he'd gotten them to fucking Hamburg and ten miles from the target, revealed when they plopped out of the cloud at bloody three hundred feet. The Elbe river is a dark thick vein into which they plunge the mines, the resulting splash a sort of baptism. 

The cloud is friendlier on the way back, the _Falcon_ stuck on their tail and clearly as irate as they are ecstatic.

"'TELL—THE—PRINCE,'" Finn reads flatly, "'THAT—I—OWE—HIM—ONE.'"

"Fucking true, that," Snap comments. "You'll never buy a beer again as long as you live. Not, of course, that that has even been an issue for you, you bloody brilliant spoiled brat."

Luke tries to explain how he'd 'extrapolated the misreading of the aircraft instruments according to the Earth’s magnetic field and crosschecked it against—’ but Snap tells him to shut actually the fuck up and from now on as far as he’s concerned Luke is a fucking mystical messiah from a galaxy far far away sent to protect Lancaster crews. Luke laughs, and even sings along with the rest of the crew as they all put aside their national differences and absolutely murder 'There'll Always Be An England” all the way home.

Shutting down the aircraft, Poe listens to the rest of the crew tumble noisily from the aircraft, high on the unexpected success; he hears a loud ‘oi’ as someone hugs Pava. He sits in the cockpit, listening to their voices, underscored by the sound of the engines cooling. Free of the oxygen mask he can see his breath as he takes one, another, trying to deal with the adrenaline problem before he goes to join the others.

Luke hasn't moved, either, except to store his own mask carefully and clear the navigator's station. He flicks the last switch and the cockpit panel goes dark, except for the white moonlight. Clear skies over England tonight.

They look at each other, and burst out laughing. It's a good, clear sound, and maybe a bit hysterical, but fuck it. When Poe can breathe again, "So, your highness. Is that what you would call 'pulling it out of one's royal arse?'"

"Something like that." Luke is grinning, wide, the kind of joy Poe just hasn't seen on him yet, hair askew from the flight headgear. For one blinding moment, Poe’s imagination paints the moment for him — closing the distance between them, his hand fisting into Luke’s hair that's grey in the moonlight, pulling Luke against him. The joy of Luke kissing him back, pooling hot in his stomach. It’s doing nothing for his heart rate.

“Skip, your madge —” Lek’s voice, ripping clearly up to the aircraft. “The fuck are you doing in there? Nunb’s whiskey isn’t going to recklessly down itself!”

“Don’t you be snogging in that cockpit,” Snap’s voice adds. “No kissing at all, I don’t care how happy you are to be alive, he’ll turn into a fucking frog and we’re not losing that navigator. He’s a keeper.”

They’re both giggling. Luke unstraps and Poe follows suit, watching as Luke shed his gauntlets into a voluminous pocket on his flying uniform. They move towards the hatch together, Poe squeezing Luke’s shoulders impulsively. 

With his left hand Luke reaches up to Poe’s gloved hand, squeezing back, saying, “Come on, skipper. I believe you owe me a bloody stiff drink.”

. . .

Solo stands them down for a week, in acknowledgement to Rapier’s crew being a third of the way through their tour. Not full leave, but a week’s respite from being slated to fly. It’s becoming harder to bounce back from operations, and Poe’s sleeping longer and longer when he’s allowed to, the sleep deficit cumulative. 

Poe surfaces on what he has an idea is a Sunday, spends too long in the shower, misses breakfast and finds the crew in the mess in varying states of presentability. Luke is sitting primly on one end of the sofa with a book. Lek and Bastian are reading a magazine at the far end of the table, something glossy with pictures from Hollywood, looking silly as schoolgirls. Snap is playing Finn at backgammon on a neighbouring table. BB is absent — Poe hopes he’s somewhere catching up on sleep.

Poe flops down on to the other end of Luke’s sofa.

“Morning, skipper. Missed you at breakfast.” Luke has a book on advanced meteorology on his lap that, combined with the the suggestion of food, makes Poe’s stomach churn. He grunts in return, and settles down for a nap, consciousness doing nothing for him. 

From his curled position on the sofa, Poe can see the runway in use. It is blowing a sodding hoolie, right across the airfield — the windsock sticks out at nearly ninety degrees to the runway. Han has shepherded less experienced pilots out to practice, and some truly heinous circuits are being flown. Watching the aircraft outside proves too entertaining however, and he winces as a Lancaster nearly skids on touchdown.

"What?" Luke asks, off Poe's expression.

Poe points to the windsock. "With the wind like that, you have to point the plane away from the centre line during at the approach so you don't get blown off course and miss the runway. You kick her straight just before touchdown, but stuff it up and she’ll skid. It shreds the tyres and you risk cartwheeling."

Luke makes an interested motion with his eyebrows. They watch the next one together, which wobbles in somewhat alarmingly, and bounces hard on landing.

"Too fast," Poe observes. "No headwind, so speed control is difficult. Watch this fellow—"

The third Lancaster approaches in a far more controlled fashion, ailerons moving in tiny adjustments to compensate for the drift. The heading offset correction is almost indistinguishable, and the touchdown so smooth Poe actually glances at the windsock. Still an unholy crosswind.

"Any good?" Luke asks, squinting at it.

"That was impressive." Poe says, honestly. "That's how it should be done."

Luke peers at the landed Lancaster, now taxying to the pan. "Isn't that _F-Falcon_?"

Squadron Leader Solo is definitely in his office, Poe knew, having just coming from being stood down. "An ATA pilot. Not bad."

"What?" Finn asks, ears pricked by the promise of More British To Be Learnt. 

"'Ancient and Tattered Airmen'." Snap calls across the room, unhelpfully.

"The Air Transport Auxilliary," Poe explains, flipping Snap a mild look. "Ferry pilots, those who for whatever reason can't do frontline flying. Normally too old. He was nearly one," He jerks his thumb at Luke, who shrugs. "They get the spare kites from A to B when neither A nor B have flak or fighters in the vicinity. That'll be the _Falcon_ back from maintenance, probably trying to hammer out the dents the boss left in her after Hamburg."

Poe reconsiders his nap, and has just started to snooze when there is a mild commotion. Opening his eyes, he sees most of the room have got to their feet, all staring at the door to the room.

A provost sergeant stands next to an elegant brunette girl in a neat tan flying suit. She regards the room and announces with the same posh inflection as Luke, "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I'm looking for Squadron Leader Skywalker?"

Luke is already halfway across the room. "Good Lord, Rey, you could have given me some warning."

"Luke!" She bounces into Luke's hug enthusiastically, and he lets out an 'oof' as her arms close around him. "I need to see Han, but I wanted to surprise you first."

Poe is standing in time to shake Rey's hand, as Luke introduces the crew. Such is the attention Rey holds Luke has to introduce virtually everyone in the mess, including the Hedge Trimmers. Poe is intrigued that Wedge Antilles gets a familiar hug in place of a handshake, and she greets him by his first name rather than his rank.

"And this is Flight Lieutenant Poe Dameron, skipper of _R-Rapier_. Skip, this is Lady Rey Organa, Duchess of Jackeau, and my cousin." 

Poe realises she is familiar from the front pages of the broadsheets that are his mother’s guilty pleasure — some relative of the twins, not a sibling, not quite the same generation. A keen outdoorswoman, pictured as more in hunting regalia with horses than in pretty frocks. Poe remembers the rumours that she was Luke’s daughter, something the Queen had laid to rest in a very serious statement once, with a very unserious twinkle in her eye. 

"Rey," Rey insists, sticking out a hand still in flying gloves. "I'm very pleased to finally meet Luke's skipper. He's told me absolutely everything about you."

Poe smiled, shaking her hand. "I sincerely hope not everything, Miss Organa." He sees ATA wings on her flying coveralls. "Was...was that you in the _Falcon_ just now?"

She wrinkles her nose at him. "Rubbish, that thing is. I've ferried at least half a dozen Lancasters in better condition — Han should've thrown her over for any one of them ages ago. And I don't know _what_ they've done to her at Tempsford but the fuel compressor is a complete nightmare. I'd have it ripped out as soon as possible."

"Hear hear," Snap agrees, who has been known to wince just hearing the engine note of _F-Falcon_. 

"That was a brilliant landing." Poe says, nodding towards the windsock. "I've watched our chaps today struggling with the wind." 

Rey accepts a cup of tea that Finn has poured her with a brief nod in his direction, oblivious to the way his gaze doesn’t leave her. "Well, they probably haven't as many hours as I have in Lancs."

Luke rolls his eyes. "Rey's been with the ATA since '42, since they started letting girls in." he explains. 

"Women, not "girls", Luke." Rey corrects flatly. She turns back to Poe. "I know you were on Spitfires."

They talk through another cup of tea, Poe enjoying her company. He notes with some amusement that the rest of the room, although making a show of going about their business as normal, is utterly attuned to their conversation. Finn is making no such pretences at normality, and he sees Snap kick him hard, once, to concentrate. Luke goes back to his book. Poe guesses he’s well used by now to being passed over in conversation by pilots talking piloty things.

Rey and Poe are well launched into a debate regarding multi-engines versus singles when Solo sweeps into the mess, banging the door in a fashion Poe associates now with mild-to-moderate displeasure. Chewie bounds in at Solo’s heels, leaping with all the grace of a fat salmon into Rey's lap.

"Hello, gorgeous boy," Rey stops mid-sentence to stroke Chewie, whose purring sounds rusty but powerful. It spares one glare at Poe, who returns it surreptitiously.

Solo points at Rey. "You better have brought the _Falcon_ back exactly how I like her — if you've moved a single thing in that cockpit, there will be hell to pay. "

Poe is momentarily taken aback by Solo's tone, which would have been irascible even he hadn't been addressing a member of the royal family. That odd feeling again, when the outside world impinges on the insular world of the squadron.

“Han. Hello to you too, and there’s already hell to pay. I was going to come to your office, but may as well, seeing as you’re all here —” As Rey speaks, she pulls a folded sheet of newspaper out of the ankle pocket of her flying suit, and tosses it on the table. Luke picks it up with interest, unfolding it and smoothing it down against the table. 

The Sunday Telegraph, page two; THE RUNAWAY ROYAL AND THE HEROES OF HAMBURG. Luke’s service portrait, next to Solo’s — and Poe’s. There’s an accompanying article; Snap grabs it out of Poe’s hand for a dramatic reading, waving the rest of the crew over.

“Following the tradition of the family’s military heritage, Squadron Leader George Luke A. Skywalker earlier this year transferred to operational flying. ‘I would be hard pressed to be with any finer men, representing the best of the Allies. God, Luke, lay it on thick, why don’t you.”

Luke has gone a fascinating shade of red. “Snap—”

“—and look there’s a whole little section on our gallant skipper. Yes, it _actually_ says gallant. ‘Born and raised in Cornwall—’”

“ _Cornwall_ fuck off, I’m from _Devon_ —”

“— Flight Lieutenant Dameron joined the RAF in 1941. Having honed his considerable flying talents on Spitfires, Poe Dameron took up duties in Bomber Command earlier this year. He has been commended for his stalwart leadership and imaginative flying.’ Well, imaginative is bloody ‘one’ way of looking at it.”

“Golly,” Lek says. “I”m going to need a copy of that for my mum, innit. Everyone’s going to need to sign this.”

Despite Lek’s words, Poe knows this will not necessarily bode well for the Squadron. The Flying Circus had been notorious even before Luke, or Poe — having reminded the press exactly what the Prince is stationed means more focus on them, and press has traditionally ended in faff for Solo and whatever wing of the government handles Royal public relations. Considerable effort will now be put into feeding disinformation about Luke’s exact location, and security at the base will be increased.

“—then there’s a typical character assassination on you, sir.” Snap nods at Solo. “They’ve gone with ‘scandalous scruff, Wing Commander Solo’.”

“It’s only character assassination if it’s not true,” Antilles calls from across the room.

“Shut it, Veggie,” Solo shoots back.

Rey grins up at him. “He’s got a point.”

“You watch it, little madam,” Solo says to her. It’s harsh, but affectionate.

Rey’s nose wrinkles again. “Speaking of watching it, you can guess who isn’t pleased about this.”

Han scowls. “If Leia can’t control Fleet Street, that’s not my problem —”

Rey stops him with a hand gesture remarkably similar to one Poe has seen Leia do on newsreels, usually to the Prime Minister. “I’ve never been your go-between, Han, and I have no intention of starting now. She’s invited you north, and by invited, I mean strongly suggested getting out of Cambridgeshire for the next twenty-four hours while the press descends. So be a good fellow and pack a bag, and you can belly-ache to her in person.” She smiles at the rest of the crew, Finn compulsively grinning back when she catches his eye. “All you chaps must join us, of course.”

Poe, after a brief phonecall to his mother to apologise for not making it home (and her calmness revealed that she hadn’t seen the headlines yet), shifts back to his room to sort a bag of skivvies and a change of clothes, resigned to whatever scheme was afoot and whatever ‘north’ meant exactly. Getting away from the airfield was suddenly an extremely attractive prospect; the place, blighted by wind, has seemed to sit on him since Hamburg. He hadn’t even learnt their names.

Poe’s halfway through shoving shirts into a kitbag when there’s a presence at his door, heralded by a soft knock.

“S’open!”

“Good morning, skipper.” It’s BB, pale-faced, fully dressed. 

“Ah, there you are, young chap.” Poe grins at him. “God, you look terrible. Catch up on some sleep?”

“Not quite.”

“We’re all shipping out. Dunno if you’ve seen this morning’s _Telegraph_ but our little soiree to Hamburg is all over page three. We’ve had a tip off the press are about to descend, so the Nav’s giving us shelter up north somewhere. So I’d pack warm.”

“So I heard, sir.” Not ‘skip’. Poe looks up sharply from his kit. “I...if it’s all the same to you, I was wondering if it would be awfully terrible of me not to come?”

More than exhaustion in the kid’s mug, now that Poe’s looking properly. “BB, are you alright?”

“It’s just a rather convenient time to go home. I’ll be back in time for duty, sir.”

“That’s not my concern — of course. Of course, BB, whatever you want. Where’s home?”

The relief on BB's face hits him in some soft, vulnerable spot - had the "sir" and the stiffness been because BB had expected Poe to refuse? “Gloucester.” BB replies.

“Long train journey. Let us know you’ve arrived safely, won’t you?”

“From where I reckon you’re going, probably not as long as yours. But I will, skipper.”

“Good show. Have a good time.”

“Thank you, skip.”

BB brushes past Snap with a nodded ‘hello’ on his way out of Poe’s room. Snap comes in unbidden, eyebrows raised in question. 

Poe points after the young bombardier, and mouths, ‘should I follow?’

Snap leans in the corridor, as if checking BB was sufficiently out of sight. “No, you’re alright. I’ll send Niv in after him a bit later, make sure he gets the train alright.”

“Is there a problem?”

“I think he may have received some rather bad news about his brother. Missing, somewhere in France, we’re to understand.”

A short silence, as Poe considers this, Snap’s tone. Then he drops his bag on the bed, moving to follow BB. 

Snap catches him, gently. “No, Poe, he’s alright. You let him go, one of the gunners’ll do the cuddly needful.”

Poe frowns. “If you’re implying that I can’t do cuddly…”

“I’m not. But no, Poe. He doesn’t want your hugs, or your platitudes. He’s gonna get a skinful of that at home. And then he’s gonna come back here, to this wind-shat splat of land, climb into one of those kites and follow you into Germany. The crew’s like a family, yes, but you’re not big brother, or father. You’re skipper. He doesn’t need you to wipe his nose for him. He needs you to lead him to war, and back.”

Poe glares at Snap, who is stopping him from leaving the room, Snap’s arms firm on his own. Then he softens at the look in Snap’s eyes. Maybe he’s right.

“In this analogy, does this make you big brother, then? Or the daft uncle that talks a lot of shit?”

Snap smacks him, gently. “Pack your kit, skip. I’d advise best bib and tucker; I’ve just had a tip off from Warrant Officer Connix that his nibs’ family is going to be about. Wing Commander’s following ‘n all.”

“You’re not coming?”

“With that much brass? Do leave off. You’re taking Finn, largely because the Lady Rey has suggested it — you must keep me informed how that pans out. The gunners won’t make it that far north — Johnny wants to visit his Canadian brothers in York, will no doubt take Niv to get plastered. I’m going to help Wedge hold down the fort here.”

Poe smirks at him. “‘Wedge?’”

“Antilles.” Snap corrects easily, face impassive. Poe holds his gaze, and is amused when Snap breaks it first.

. . .

North means Scotland, and it’ll take them five hours up by train. They pile into a compartment together, Luke, Poe and kit taking one bench, the opposite filled with the sparks, Lady Rey and the Wing Commander. Lady Rey has changed into an Air Transport Auxiliary uniform, wrinkled from wherever it had been fished out from. She and Finn begin an earnest discussion over the top of Solo’s sleeping form (who, after levering himself pointedly between the two, had promptly passed out). Poe endeavours to do the same, lulled by the other occupants of the carriage and the motion of the carriage.

When he wakes, clear, cold air is coming through the open window, and he realises he has drooled onto Luke's shoulder. "Sorry," Poe says, wiping his mouth, vaguely mortified. "Not going to put me in the Tower, are you?"

"I think you'd scare the ravens," Luke says calmly, looking eagerly to the platform, the dramatic hills beyond the station. For one wild moment Poe wishes they could spend another five hours like this — Luke’s scent this close is heady, but he moves reluctantly to allow Luke to stand. He notes how Luke stretches hard enough for his spine to crack, as if he’d been sitting in same position for hours, letting Poe sleep.

They disembark untidily, and Poe squints at Luke through the steam from the train, watching the bastard inhaling the clearer air with a look of serene appreciation. A sudden thought occurs to him. "Do _not_ tell me we're going to Balmoral."

Thoughts of the aforementioned Tower just about keep Poe from twatting the look of guilt off Luke's face, as they board the little fleet of cars that has arrived to receive them from the station. In the back of the car Poe feel disorientated from the journey — he leans forward to rest his elbows and his knees and screw the heels of hands into his eye sockets until the car stops moving, Luke’s voice in his ear saying, "We're here,” with a hand on his shoulder. 

Poe shrugs Luke off and unfolds himself from the car. Balmoral swims before him in his vision, a fuck-off great block of a construction, all towering turrets and regimented windows. A sodding garden growing up it vertically. 

As Poe regards it venomously, an elderly gentleman emerges from the house and greets Luke with the kind of unconscientious enthusiasm Poe wouldn’t have anticipated, a stark contrast to the line of bowing servants that file out behind him to relieve the crew of their kitbags. The man’s eyes are bright above a beard only this side of kempt, and his grin is cheeky despite his advanced age. He folds Luke to his personage in clearly powerful embrace, that Luke returns with abandon.

Solo is rubbing his eyes, as if the fresh air is hurting them, and mutters about going for a sleep. He sketches a salute at the old man, before disappearing into the house without ceremony. Poe feels abandoned by his CO, left to fend for himself in the face of whatever royal nonsense lurks within the vine-adorned walls, with only Finn for support. Rey is already co-opting Finn’s attention, pointing out distant spots on the grounds, towards to the forest, and Finn is caught between staring at her and glancing at the impressive structure of Balmoral itself.

“I,” The gentleman introduces himself, keeping an arm around Luke, “am little highness’s Uncle Ben Obi-Wan the Third. You, my dear dear boy, are Flight Lieutenant Poe Dameron of VII Squadron, Lieutenant Finn of the United State Army Air Force, and you, Miss Rey, are an almighty terror, bringing these fine young men here to interrupt our peace and quiet.”

Rey beams from ear to ear, enjoying a hug from Obi-Wan’s free arm. Poe finds himself warmed by the fellow, his avuncular manner lessening the impact of the intimidating facade behind him. Luke grins at Poe over Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“Come along, Mr Dameron. No need to look so afraid. I know it looks like a fortress of doom, but I promise, if you’re looking for respite from the ravages of the world outside, you have come to the right place.”

What’s left of the afternoon passes in an unhurried, rambling tour of the property, Obi-Wan showing the grounds with the thorough and quiet enthusiasm of one who very much adores his surroundings. Poe gleans that the old man is some acquaintance of Luke’s father’s, close enough to treat the place as his home, and Luke like some beloved wayward nephew — the tour is punctuated by earnest enquiries after Luke’s health (“nasty rumours about you losing a hand in a raid?”). The sword collection they admire in the library shows him to be ex-Royal Navy, and that he taught Luke the ways of swordsmanship, as a gentlemanly pursuit and to give him some direction when Leia threatened to absorb the limelight. 

Poe learns Obi-Wan is not a fan of flying; finds it vaguely distasteful, in the way that most of the previous generation regards the newfangled technology — Poe’s reminded of his gran in the faint clucking disbelief Obi-Wan shows when Poe, Finn and Luke discuss the reality of the missions and squadron life. Obi-Wan has a copy of the _Telegraph_ in a beautifully appointed office, where they sit before dinner in front of an unseasonable but welcome fire — tumblers of exquisite whiskey, and Luke glosses over the finer details as they recreate the Hamburg mission for him.

Afternoon rolls into evening, a gong ricocheting throughout the great depths of the house to signal dinner. Despite Snap’s dour warning, they don’t change; everyone trails behind Obi-Wan, who shows them to the main hallway. 

“I have a previous appointment for dinner,” Obi-Wan says smoothly, “So you’ll forgive me for not joining. I assure you that Padmé will look after you in my absence.”

Poe’s desperately hoping he’s misheard; that the Queen isn’t about to appear without any warning and him still wearing the uniform he travelled the length of the island in. 

This is exactly what happens. The Queen turns into view at the top of the stairs on her daughter’s ill-mannered suitor’s arm, descending like they’re in fucking Camelot. It sets off a chain reaction of choreographed movement among the servants lining the hallway and Poe quickly calculates he doesn’t have enough time to a) berate Luke for not warning him the Queen is in residence b) ask the correct protocol and c) bow correctly so he settles for baring his teeth at Luke and turning it into what he hopes is a charming smile when the Queen and Han draw level. 

Poe flails for a moment for the correct greeting, bowing his head as he had done when he had met Princess Leia. It feels absurd considering he hadn’t once extended the same courtesy to Luke. Han slaps him upside the head in greeting, and the Queen, to his great surprise, just laughs.

“I do apologise, Mr Dameron, on behalf of Han here.” The Queen says to him. “He is still growing manners, I’m led to believe. But please don’t feel any need to stand on ceremony.” She extends her hand in a position very clearly to be shaken, not kissed. “It was most wicked of Obi-Wan to keep you all from me for the entire afternoon; I rather think he was pleased at the fresh company.”

“Sorry, mother.” Luke does look genuinely sheepish, the emotion quickly forced out in favour of the simple pleasure on his face as he hugs his mother, even submitting to her hand combing through his hair as she pulls away. “I wasn’t sure you were here.”

“Leia apologises for not coming as well.” The Queen replies, letting her hand rest on Luke’s jaw, searching him up and down for any damage. “You’re both looking so tired these days.”

 

“You look lovely too,” Luke says ruefully, takes her arm from Han to escort her into the dining room. Poe follows with Han into a dining room of the same proportions as the hay barn at the Damerons’ farm. Rey and Finn follow in shortly after, smelling of the outside.

As they take their seats, Poe knows he stares just a moment too long at the arsenal of culinary weaponry laid out next to his plate, inlaid with the Skywalker crest in gold. Fucking officer school didn’t deal with this. He looks up to catch Finn’s eye, look for fellow ignorance, and is slightly aggrieved to see Finn effortlessly picking up an apparently random fork without batting an eyelid.

“Start from the outside,” Luke whispers next to him. “And work in. Honestly, skip, were you raised on a farm?”

His mother is within earshot of any squealing, so Poe just about refrains from kicking him. He’s nonetheless grateful that he’s seated next to Luke, who, despite his teasing, is a grounding presence at the imposing table. The Queen is seated on Luke’s other side.

Despite two glasses of wine over the first course Poe finds himself struggling to relax. Not for want of pleasant surroundings, or company — he perhaps blames the whiskey, the lack of quality sleep on the train, but he feels jumpy. Maybe it’s the way the Queen briefly fusses over the few fingers of Luke’s that are still bandaged from the cold burns, healing slow in some places — the discomfort that he’s brought Luke back harmed. The food is a stark upgrade from what’s on offer at the Mess at Dacre, far grander than anything Poe would have eaten at home. He imagines, very briefly, Mum and Gran sitting down to supper, sharing a newspaper between them, Mum probably with her boots up on the opposite chair, the farmhouse creaking amiably around them. 

He flinches when an enormous dinner plate with an exquisite main course is served by a liveried servant, landing with a soft thump not unlike landing the Avro Anson.

To his great chagrin, the Queen, seated beyond Luke, notices. He’s about to apologise, but she leans forward, as if conspiratorially. Solo is holding forth to the rest of the table, recounting his Kessel run mission — it’s a story they’ve all heard before with the exception of Finn, who is enraptured. Luke is listening as well, but notices his mother’s interest in Poe and leans back.

“Mr Dameron.” 

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Please, enjoy some more wine. The Scottish nights can be awfully cold and we all need fortification. And ‘ma’am’ will do.” She tops up Poe’s glass herself, and smiles at him. It’s more compelling than in the newsreels - softer, wider. Poe is struck with the reminder that he’s in her home, not an official space. _Luke’s_ home and the Queen is his navigator’s _mother_ , not just a figurehead from the back of a five pound note.

The Queen passes the full wineglass to Luke, who slides it on to Poe with an encouraging smile, and they both beam at him for a moment. The pair of them look equal parts charming and daft, and Poe’s grin is genuine as he says, “Thank you, ma’am.” 

Poe tucks into the main course, and listens to Rey showing off Finn to the Queen, announcing excitedly, “he’s from _Chicago_ , Auntie, and he’s been telling me all about how the fog up here reminds him of home.” Finn in turn is full of questions — about the house, the family, asked with a guileless shamelessness that Poe still isn’t sure is calculated or just a part of Finn’s Americanness. The Queen answers gamely and patiently, before asking,

“And are you enjoying being embedded with the fine gentlemen of my Air Force, Mr Finn?”

“Well ma’am.” Finn lays down his fork. “I can honestly say it’s been a privilege to come to your country and help defend it. We Americans are briefed to expect all kinds of things before we’re sent over and I’m still a bit of a fish out of water, but I hope to follow the Wing Commander’s example.”

“Example?” The Queen echoes.

“In fully embracing your country and it’s fine people, ma’am.”

Poe freezes, and Han guffaws into his wine glass. Finn just continues to smile, the Queen’s own lingering on Finn a little too long, her eyebrow just slightly quirked. Then she turns to Han, addressing him for the first time by his rank. 

“So, Wing Commander,” — Han stops chewing — “Who’s in charge at your Flying Circus presently?”

“Veggie has the conn,” Han replies, through a full mouth. “I’m sure he’ll cope for a night or so.”

Poe decides it’s a reasonable arena to say to Luke, “Squadron Leader Antilles is an old acquaintance of yours, I gather? Before you put on RAF blues, I mean?”

"Our families are friends." Luke replies. 

"That means something different to you than it it does for me. You're going to tell me he owns half of Norfolk, or something."

"Wrong county. The dukedom of Northumberland doesn't cover Norfolk."

Poe pinches the bridge of his nose, as Finn looks delighted. "He's a bloody Duke." He realises that he’s just sworn with the Queen less than three foot away; she doesn’t appear to have heard.

"He's a pilot, same as you," Luke says mildly, inspecting his vegetables. "And technically Wedge won't inherit until his father passes." 

"Ugh," Poe grimaces just as Finn says, "This is amazing."

“I tell you what, Mrs S,” Han says, and it takes a moment for Poe to realise he’s referring to the Queen. “Wedge is a wild one at the squadron — he takes a very elastic approach to minimum height regulations.”

Luke grins at his mother; “We call his crew ‘the Hedge Trimmers’.”

The Queen raises her eyebrows. “Oh, that won’t do his father’s heart any good.”

Han snorts exaggeratedly, before continuing, "He gives off a very good impression of being respectable, does my adjutant, but he’s still that dumb kid who dared _this_ dumb kid to run the length of the London house buck naked.”

Luke reddens instantly, and he rounds on Han, "You _know_ about that?"

Han hits the table with an open hand, laughing. Poe's head swims, and it’s not just from the wine. He can feels his eyebrows nearly in his hairline as he tries to sort _that_ mental image from the odd feeling of having this discussion with the Queen inches away. 

Off Poe’s expression, Luke says, "We were _young_ , and there was far too much of Obi-Wan’s scotch involved.” Luke glares at the table collectively.

The Queen graciously steps in to save her son, saying to him, “I imagine I don’t want to know what they call _your_ crew then, do I?”

Poe can’t help it; “They call us the Rebel Alliance, ma’am. We’ve got a Scotsman, a Canadian, and now a yank, as well as England’s best.”

Finn sketches a very American salute across the table, palm at the wrong angle to his forehead. He says, “At your service ma’am.” Finn’s face changes to the one that meant he was working something through. “So Squadron Leader Antilles isn’t a relation...but you're cousins, right?" He indicates Rey and Luke.

"Of a sort," Luke says. "It's a complicated family tree, but essentially, yes."

"They _adopted_ me," Rey says with pride. 

As if afraid Finn would take it literally, Luke goes on to explain, "The Duke and Duchess of Jackeau have a significant number of concerns abroad, principally India. They spent quite a bit of time overseas, so eventually my mother and father were given charge of Rey. She's grown up with us."

“You make it sound so damning, dear,” The Queen says. “I think it’s fair to say that Rey was only half-feral when we found her playing in the garden at Neemer House.”

Han laughs, and picks up the story. “Rey was added to the Skywalker household, as if growing up with Luke and Leia would discourage habits distasteful to uppercrust society. Mrs S actually thought the twins would be a good influence, and the Hellion of Jackeau could be tamed. As you can see, we're still trying."

Rey sticks her tongue out at Han. "Through no fault of Auntie," She says, grinning at the Queen. "She raised me to the delightful thing I am today. Some fault of you," She jabs her finger at Luke. "The ATA was his idea, and he would have been by my side, had he not got some hare-brained idea about navigating instead."

"All of you," Poe addresses the table, "are one hundred percent madder than the newspapers make you out to be.” Remembering the Queen, he adds quickly, “Uh, with respect, ma’am.”

Han yawns, says, "Welcome to the boss class, Dameron,” and gestures for everyone to be poured more wine.

By the time pudding is cleared (Han and Finn laughing heartily at the spotted dick), everyone is somewhat sozzled. Rey and Finn stand as if to leave together, deep in discussion about the latest release at the picturehouse, causing Han to scramble to his feet.

“You, Big Deal,” he nods at Finn, using the wording from Finn’s USAAF secondment recommendation that Finn is never living down, “I’ll show you to your bunk. I’m next door, have ears like a bat and know where the shotguns are kept in the house.”

Rey looks infuriated, Finn alarmed. Han pauses briefly to kiss the Queen’s hand with a rogueish grin, and sweeps from the room with both of them, just refraining from grabbing their collars. 

The Queen, Luke and Poe are left in the empty dining room. “Well,” the Queen says thoughtfully, “I don’t remember that particular approach from the Debrett’s chapter on Chaperoning, but I suppose it will prove effective.”

“Squadron Leader Solo tends to have his own approach to things, I’m noticing.” Poe says.

“I trait I’ve always found admirable.” The Queen smiles. “And found often in gentlemen I seem to be surrounded by, and one I do not think you lack, Mr Dameron.”

“If it gets me into trouble, I shall merely say I’m following Solo’s example, ma’am.”

Luke, between them, is doing a bad job of stifling a yawn. “Speaking of singular men, shall we say goodnight to Obi-Wan, mother?” Luke suggests. At Padme’s nod, Luke goes on to give Poe instructions to the guest quarters, and asks if he’s alright to find his room.

Poe snorts dismissively. “Give your uncle my best.” They separate in the vast hallway, the Queen and Luke leaving for somewhere deeper in the house, Poe for the stairs. Twilight is clinging outside, Poe can see from the expansive window over the staircase; it stirs an uncomfortable, pavlovian reaction of adrenaline in him. At the Squadron they would have been preparing for night ops.

The feeling distracts him enough that he forgets most of Luke’s instructions. He follows vaguely a hallway big enough to comfortably fly _R-Rapier_ down, moving in what is probably the direction that Luke had referred to. He finds his room — fire in the hearth, the bed made, and makes straight for the bathroom.

There is a gigantic bathtub, large enough to float the HMS Ark Royal. Poe undresses lazily as he waits for it to fill, aware his head is muzzy from the alcohol. He finds a bottle of something pink and sweet smelling and chucks it in the water, and is appreciative when bubbles bloom — when in Rome. 

Climbing in when the water is at temp, he finds it is glorious — the hot water suffusive, warmth rushing into every muscle Poe has annoyed folding himself into aircraft for half a decade. He lets go a genuine moan of pleasure, dropping his head. 

He has no idea how long he sits like that — enough time for some of the tension from dinner to drain into the water around him, allow him to fully wonder what the fuck he was doing, in a bathroom whose value alone is worth more than the Dameron farmhouse, having just hobnobbed with his navigator’s mother who was also the _Queen_. The gilded sides of the bath and bubbles offer a luxurious soak that is a far cry from a quick, unsatisfying shower at Dacre. He thinks of _R-Rapier_ , stood down, cold in her hangar.

When he looks up, Luke is standing in the doorway to the bathroom. His jacket is open, shirt untucked, tie knot looser than when they’d started the day at Dacre. The sight of him does something fluttery to Poe’s chest, and he just about catches a rising sigh.

Luke’s eyes are wide, meeting Poe’s as he clears his throat, jaw working silently for a moment. Finally he say, “Skipper. Good job you’re a half decent pilot, as you’d make a rubbish navigator.”

Poe finds himself grinning back. “You impugn my honor, sir — it was a bloody feat to find my room after your instructions, and, in my defence, at least half the wine cellar. Your staff aren’t half as stingy as the mess staff.” He can see a flush creeping into Luke’s cheeks, wonders whether it’s from the heat of the bath, or finding his skipper naked in it. He’s intrigued by Luke’s awkwardness, used to his Navigator barreling headfirst into most situations and making a good fist of it as possible.

“Yes very well done, except this is my room.” Luke points behind him. “You’re about a ninety degree turn and a dozen rooms out.”

“Oh.” Poe says. He leans back against the bath. “Well, sorry, about that, dear chap. I’m afraid I’ve rather myself comfortable.” 

Luke gives a mock bow. “Please, be my guest. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Come on, Luke.” Poe tries for a compelling smile, unwilling to have Luke leave after being gifted his presence unexpectedly. He’s happy to be able to banter at Luke idly, in private, away from the rest of the castle, when they could be just skipper and navigator, rather than royal son and guest. “Stay. Talk to me. Come on, you can’t see anything through this.” He gestures to the now billowy bubbles.

Luke gives him a half smile, but comes closer nonetheless. There’s a light sheen to his skin from the heat of the room; he shrugs off his jacket, laying it carefully on the floor next to the bath. He loosens his tie even further, toes off his shoes and socks, before coming to sit on the edge.

“So,” Poe says, tapping the surface of the water. “Thanks for the warning about your mother being here.”

Luke shrugs. “My mother is not the one that requires a warning. I thought she was in London, anyway.” 

Poe flicks some bubbles at him. “My gran would be horrified to see the state of the uniform I just _met the Queen of the country_ in.”

Luke makes a derisive noise. “I remember you standing on no such ceremony meeting me.”

“You’re not on the bloody currency.” 

“A relief for all concerned, I think you’ll find. Anyway, my mother is made of sterner stuff than to be shocked by rumpled battledress.”

“She’s made of something truly remarkable to tolerate the Boss like she does.”

“She’s very fond of Han. Whom I absolutely should have separated from my sister on a permanent basis, with continents between them. Apparently discretion is not the better part of Leia’s valour.”

“Or Han’s,” Poe agrees, trying out the Wing Commander’s first name for the first time aloud. “Good to have some dirt on you next time I want to extract egregious favours from the crown.”

Luke leans to splash him lightly. “I’m fairly certain that’s treason.”

Poe shrugs his relaxed shoulders, begrudging even that effort. “Semantics. I shall certainly look differently upon these walls now, knowing that they have you seen your bare arse.”

“Actually it was the Naboo Wing of Skywalker Castle.” Luke says, adding, “although I’ve been naked in this room plenty of times. Leia and I shared it, when we were little, but she rather outgrew it round about the time we turned five. This," Luke points to the tub, "made a very decent Atlantic Ocean when one was playing pirates and mermaids."

Poe is momentarily entranced by the mental image of two bobbing toddlers, one dark, one tow headed, in amongst the bubbles. Then nods, and says, "I can see that. I'm expecting a U-boat to surface any second."

There was beat, and then Luke says, "I wouldn't flatter yourself, skipper."

Poe laughs, surprised. “Not bad, little Highness. Which, I _definitely_ heard Obi-Wan call you, and you’re to explain unless you want to be referred to by it until Kingdom-sodding-come.”

Luke gives a half-smile. “Uncle Obi-Wan, he...his idea of a sense of humour, I suppose.”

“You’re very close to him?”

Luke nods. “A father to me.” 

Poe’s desperate to ask more, but Luke’s tone doesn’t invite it. He gestures to their surroundings instead. "So what, actually, is this place? Apart from fuck-off huge."

Luke carefully rolls up his tie as he recites, "Balmoral as you see it now, was built in 1853, and has been in my family since then. It was originally a hunting lodge. The estate covers fifty-thousand—"

"No, Luke." Poe stops him mid-flow. "I mean — that's fascinating and all — but what I meant was, what is this to you? Is this home?"

"Home?" Luke says back at him, as if it’s a foreign word.

"Yes, little Highness, home. Hearth. I mean, there's definitely a hearth here and big enough to service the whole squadron, but is this your home and hearth? Or is that Skywalker Castle?"

Luke appears to consider, for a moment. He needs sleep, Poe realises — there’s tight skin at his eyes.

"This is...a happy place for us, I suppose." Luke says. "We spent happy times here. Lived here, during the first war, while Father was in France. Uncle Obi-Wan was with us here as much as he could, during the war and after, when mother was...distracted. I learned very early on that home means more than just bricks and mortar, and in Obi-Wan, that family means more than blood.”

Poe nods, thinking of the crew. “Fair enough.”

Luke has busied himself with the rolling tobacco and papers he'd pulled from his jacket pocket, putting a bare foot up on the generous bath side. This has been one of the habits Luke picked up quickest on the squadron — the obsession with smoking, the ceremony of it. Poe guesses he simply likes the routine of having something to do with his hands. He's become, as he was proving to be for most things, a pro at it — in short order, Poe was handed a lit fag so good, it could have passed for one from a packet.

"You're not at all half bad at this," Poe says, before leaning back against the tub's side and inhaling.

"Mother does not find it an admirable quality." Luke smokes his own more cautiously.

“Does she object to you slumming it at the Flying Circus?" Poe asks. 

"She worries, like all mothers do. Leia had more vocal objections. I can't imagine I've made either of their lives simpler," Luke says. It sounds honest; Poe hears a remorseful note. 

"Well, I’ve never had any siblings, but I'm fairly certain the point of being a brother is not to make your sister's life easier. It’s definitely not the point of being a son." Poe smiles and adds, "Well, at least you're slumming it with the best." 

Before he’s fully aware of his actions, Poe lays his palms and fingers on Luke's bare foot, where it rests on the side of the tub. The skin there is soft and white, as if it had never seen the sun, and as he belatedly considers the action, is struck by the contrast of his darker skin against Luke’s. He can see the purple of Luke's veins, oddly fascinating.

Luke too looks at Poe's hand, as if deciding whether to shift it off or not. Instead Luke begins to pick idly at the remaining dressings on his fingers, now just over the very worst patches and slim enough to fit into his own flying gloves.

"Regardless, I'm not sure my wellbeing is foremost in her mind, these days."

"Just mine, then." Poe strokes, once, gently, the back of his fingers against the top of Luke's foot.

Luke keeps looking at his own fingers. Then he leans over and put both hands into the water.

Poe impulsively moves away from the dressings. "If there's pus in those, I'm leaving."

Luke makes eye contact with him, and pulls the first bandage.

Poe doesn't wait to find out if he’s right; practically jumps over Luke in his eagerness to leave the bath. He picks up a towel along the way, gratified to hear the sound of Luke's laughter, evil though the source was. After scrubbing briefly at himself with the towel, he decides to dry in the warmth of the fire lit fire and lay face-first, fully naked on Luke's bed. He dozes, listening to the sounds of Luke getting bathed himself, and has no idea how much time passes before he's broken from his reverie by the thump of something soft hitting his bare arse; pyjamas, thrown by the now-clean Luke standing in the bathroom doorway. 

"That'll do you, skipper." Luke says. "Off to your room, then."

Poe squints an eye open. "If you think I'm moving from this spot," Poe replies flatly, "You have another think coming." He then peers over his shoulder at the pyjamas Luke has just thrown at him. He growls, "Are those silk?"

"What decent manservant would give his skipper anything but the best?" Luke shoots back. "Now, honestly, I really do actually fancy getting some shut eye. Your room is very easy to find, I assure you."

"We’ve just established that I am a terrible navigator,” Poe replies, closing his eyes.

Poe’s not sure exactly why this is a compelling argument to Luke, but it appears to be so, as Luke pulls back the duvet and climbs in, turning his back to Poe primly. Poe, energised by his proximity, makes short work of pulling on the rancid pyjamas, before slipping under the same duvet. Luke turns to inspect him. 

"Rather fetching on you, skipper." He says, before tucking Poe in exaggeratedly, pointedly restraining him with the duvet before scooting back to his side.

Not wanting to push his hand and sidelined into relaxation by the truly unearthily good pillow beneath him, Poe settles belly down to sleep, still slightly dazed by Luke’s closeness. Maybe Luke is just grateful for the company — after the weeks of having slept so close in the mess at Dacre, it’s hard to suddenly sleep with an airfield-long corridor between them.

"I promise not to ravish you, your majesty." Poe says into the near darkness, the fire dying in the hearth. 

Luke says over his shoulder, "What a gentleman you are, skipper. Sleep well."

"Sleep well, nav."

Poe watches the shadows play across Luke's relaxing shoulders, before closing his eyes and nosing into the pillow. He falls asleep to Luke's scent and the smell of fire, two things which seem to be so much a part of his life this summer.

. . .

Poe is woken when the familiar vibration of _R-Rapier_ around him gives way to preternatural stillness, a ringing silence in darkness. Luke is conspicuously absent, the fire dead. The empty bed swamps him — Poe pushes out of it, disquieted by the empty room.

He pushes into an equally bleak corridor, rounds a few corners, following shafts of moonlight. The paintings are shadowy on the wall, except for one, arranged in front of a window so it’s lit by the moonlight, and Poe stops in front of it, compelled by the familiar faces.

The painting is of the Skywalker family, arranged formally. The Queen is resplendent in youth and has Leia in her skirts. As a toddler the young princess clearly favours her mother, eyes big and dark. Anakin is standing tall in his Army regiment’s uniform, colonel rings at the cuffs. A fair-headed boy is in his arms, sleeping against his shoulder, mouth parted in heedless sleep. Poe checks the date at the bottom of the frame — Luke and Leia are four years old.

The carpet is cold to his bare feet. Poe pulls away from the painting, and continues to stumble along the corridor, not sure if he’s even awake yet, just looking for proper light. When he finds it, a barely-open door with a fire within, he doesn’t hesitate.

Not a bedroom. Fire in the hearth, rushing air in the chimney. A study maybe, but there's wall-to-wall books, and not the scrappy paperbacks that littered the officer's mess at Dacre — big, richly bound tomes of mind-boggling variety and subject. 

He's already inside the room when he realises he's not alone, and the sound he's hearing is the sound of slightly labored breathing, not just the wind in the chimney. He hears a voice say,

"Good morning, young man."

A full-body start, as Poe one-eighties to see a figure stood by from a large chair closest to the fire. The fucking thing is facing away from the door.

"I'm sorry," He apologises compulsively. He feels his face reddening, as recognition of the figure set in.

Prince Consort Anakin Skywalker is taller in person; he must have a good foot on his children, even Luke. His eyes, nearly hidden by hair worn like Luke's looked before he combed it — the same uncontrollable fringe — meets his gaze unblinkingly. A scar splits the lower lid on his right eye, extending to his cheek. Skywalker's voice is rough, damaged, matching the burn tissue evident in face, neck, and hand, when he offers it to shake Poe's.

"I...was trying to find some company," Poe says, insufficiently. Mrs and Major Dameron hadn't raised an impolite boy, so he tries to pull his shit together and bows shortly in what he hopes was a reasonable approximation of what would be appropriate.

"Flight Lieutenant Dameron, your highness, VII Squadron, RAF Dacre." He is still wearing the pyjamas Luke had insisted he wore. Fuck. 

"I’m aware. Obi-Wan told me all about our visitors over dinner. You’re serving with my son," Skywalker says, his cadence unhurried. 

It takes Poe a moment to reply. "I am, sir." He meets Skywalker's eyes; they are ringed in red, a particularly bad patch of scarring over the left. It begins to make sense the room is in so much darkness. "We're in the same crew."

"I suspected as much, when I heard visitors in the east wing." Wrong wing, fuck. "Both my children speak highly of you."

"That's an honor to hear, sir. It's an honor to serve alongside Luke — uh, his royal highness, sir."

"Luke..." Skywalker seems to consider something, but his chest has other ideas, and he turns away briefly while a great, sick-sounding cough temporarily takes over his torso. Poe lowers his eyes as Skywalker pushed a handkerchief against his mouth, and the worst of it passes.

The rumours around the King Consort are dark, and rife. Poe finds it impossible not to dwell on them now — the mustard gas attacks in the heart of France, in the first round in 1917. Anakin Skywalker, the handsome, visionary army officer spearheading the British response to the chemical warfare, the infamous Vader regiment. Poe remembers his father telling him about Skywalker's spirited argument for the development of the British use of gas weapons, believing the silent, deadly force to be something almost holy in its biblical effectiveness — fire with fire, eye for an eye. But wind and chance had put paid to that, and Poe can still remember the dead look in his father's eyes as he recalled to Poe — just once, on Poe's eighteenth birthday, when Poe became eligible for a commission — the mustard gas offensive, blown back across British lines by an ill wind.

"Whatever you do, son," Kes had said, the same damage in his voice as Skywalker has, the same haunted inflections, "If this has all been for nothing — stay out of the trenches. You get into the air. Somewhere you can always breathe." Poe’s father had been a loving, laughing man, but never a whole one in the time Poe knew him — his skin and lungs shredded by the sulphur mustard, indelibly marked and doomed by it.

Poe checks himself, to see if there's anger for this man, for what he's done, but he can't find it — only sees that Skywalker's eyes, rimmed with age and injury, are the same blue as his son’s.

"Luke has always been good at seeing," Skywalker continues now. "I am grateful he's getting to see conflict from a different perspective from either Leia, or myself."

Poe struggles with his response — is saved from replying by the door opening, a sharp sound that makes Skywalker flinch.

Luke, in the same hideous pyjamas they had gone to bed in, with a flying jacket over the top, arrives in the open door. He glances at Skywalker before turning his attention to Poe.

“Poe,” he says. There’s a hard note to his voice, unlike anything Poe has heard this evening. “This isn’t your room, either.”

“I was just apologising to your father,” Poe says, pointedly. “For both rudely intruding, and not greeting him properly earlier.”

Luke’s face is stony as the fire reflects off it, shadows jumping faintly in his face from the flames. He’s holding a mug, which Poe is willing to bet anything has chocolate in it. “You should be in bed.” Luke continues, steadfastly ignoring Skywalker’s eye.

“I see my son is being a solicitous host,” Skywalker says, looking at Luke. His expression is hard to decipher. “He’s...very good at taking care of people.”

Poe nearly flinches at the look Luke gives his father, before turning sharply from the room and leaving without taking leave. Poe stares after him for a moment and when he turns back to Skywalker, the man bows his head in goodbye, as if sensing the encounter is at an end. Poe can’t even remember what he says to excuse himself to follow Luke.

Poe catches up to him down the corridor.

“So...is that a royalty thing, where you don’t even shake hands with your dad after nearly three months of fighting away from home?”

Luke’s eyes look pinched, when he turns and stops.. Painfully tired. “No. It’s just him.”

Poe waits for an explanation. Luke says, “You know what he did.”

A thin thread of hot emotion passes through Poe’s chest at Luke’s words, thinking of Kes, of fathers and sons. “Of course. He...made some hard decisions.”

“Some wrong decisions,” Luke counters. “Some unforgivable decisions.” Poe is shocked by the force of conviction he sees in Luke’s eyes, a hard note he’s not seen in Luke before. “He caused an atrocity. Tore families apart, maimed thousands of good, innocent men.”

Poe says, “You don’t need to tell me that war was terrible.”

“And _my father_ spearheaded one of its darkest weeks.” Luke shoots back. “When _this_ war passed to Leia and I, it...it got to the point where I just couldn’t sit at a desk in Headquarters any more. I needed to see the consequences of the decisions we were making. To _be part of_ them.”

Poe thinks of the first day they met — Luke’s handshake, skin to skin, in front of the aircraft. The surety in it. Now it makes his skin crawl. “Is that why you wanted to fly? Are you trying to atone for what your father did?” 

Luke’s silence is reply enough. The temperature in the hallway is cold, after the stuffy warmth of Skywalker’s room, but Poe’s skin is so warm he feels like he’s vibrating, the heat of his reaction to Luke’s words vicious. “With all due respect, Luke, don’t be so unimaginably naive.”

Luke’s eyes narrow at Poe’s words, his jaw opening as if to make a reply, but Poe can’t stop himself. “I know what they say about your family, and it must have been hard for you. But the entire fucking country inherited this, not just you and your sister. It’s _not_ your birthright. It’s just fucking _war_ , Luke. You have my loyalty, and my skills — and if it comes to it my life — as do any of my crew. But I won’t offer you absolution and I guarantee you won’t find it in what we do. If that’s what you’re looking for — I suggest a re-course in navigation.” 

Luke says angrily, “You have no idea what I’m looking for. You don’t understand the evil of my father’s actions.”

“More than you might think, Luke.” Poe bites off. Then he takes a deliberate breath, and amends his tone to a whisper, suddenly conscious of the possible proximity of the sleeping household. “Look…I’m sorry you’re taking this so personally. That you can’t even fucking _look_ at your father. But I can’t judge him, and neither should you. Not when we do what we do with _Rapier_.”

He sees Luke flinch. Wonders whether Luke sees it too, sees Germany burning, every time he lays down to sleep. Every time he looks at Skywalker, which is why he doesn’t.

Poe goes on, “Maybe one day we’ll have that luxury. But tonight, tomorrow, and every day we go and drop bombs in Europe that’s a right we both forfeited, the moment we stepped foot into our first aircraft. You are _not_ so fucking special just because your last name is Skywalker and your dad was in France. You’re a bloody good navigator, and a good man. But you don’t get to take your father’s reckoning to Germany with you. That’s not what we’re doing.”

Poe wonders if he’s imagining the wetness in Luke’s eyes, a softer note above the tight line of his mouth. Poe thinks of the little toddler playing in the bath, the same one asleep in his father’s arms. Looking into his father’s scarred, haunted face, in place of one that was once whole.

Luke crosses his arms across his chest, shoulders tight. “What are we doing, then?” he asks, his voice thin. 

In this northern palace, so very many miles from the farm his parents built in peacetime, his head ringing with the low thrum of heavy bombers, a sound he can’t shake from his soul, Poe has only one answer for him, simple and honest. “The right thing. I hope.”

Luke looks down. After a moment, he scrubs the back of his head with his hand. Poe says, “Look...it’s too late for this. We both should sleep. We can talk about it again, later.”

For a moment, Poe’s expecting Luke to fight back. Instead he watches as Luke’s shoulders drop.

“Alright.” Luke says, his voice low, not unlike Skywalker’s. He amends it to, “Maybe.”

Luke wordlessly shows him to an empty room, Poe’s own kit stowed at the bottom of the bed. Sleep claims him quickly, in the unwarmed bed he was originally assigned. He dreams of flying over a dark, mud-strewn land, all the way into a cold morning.

. . .


	4. Part Four

 . . .

The summer remains mild. Even on the days when it isn’t actually raining, the high pressure keeps moisture and haze trapped in the atmosphere up to the inversion that sits over Cambridgeshire for days.

"As if it wasn't fucking grim enough up there," Snap comments darkly, looking at the met for the day's airtest — making sure the mechanics had put _R-Rapier_ together again in the right order after repairs from a lively raid to Sylt, the second since they’d come back from leave. Lek and Bastian scoff at him, united at least in laughing at England for failing to have proper weather. Truce doesn't last long, when Lek remarks that anyone living through a Canadian winter is just in training for Scotland. Finn gets involved, protesting that a Chicago winter is just as brutal. He’s summarily dismissed as a ‘soft city boy’ by both gunners, Lek hailing from somewhere near Skye and Bastian from somewhere truly rural in the Northern Territories. 

They banter all the way across the apron, Poe benignly ignoring them. Five days and two missions since their return from Scotland; Luke falls into step beside him, not talking, and Poe nods at him, not smiling. He signs for _R-Rapier_ and the cockpit crew take their positions, Luke folding an ordinary OS map across the nav's station — a day flight, a novelty. Poe will be checking the repairs to the rudder, how she handles with the new centre of gravity with the slight weight change with the control surface patches; the gunners are checking the newly installed sights, upgraded with the rest of the fleet, all on a local flit over flat Cambridgeshire idyll.

Poe sneezes, once, twice, and Snap reflexively crosses himself, warding off the evil eye. A summer affliction, something with cold-like symptoms but quickly turning into the flu, has been doing the rounds on the Squadron.

"It's nothing." Poe says, flipping Snap a grin over his shoulder. He ignores the look at Luke gives him, altogether more searching. They’d brought a chill down from Balmoral that sits between them, not melting in the tepid summer warmth, just another level of stress in the two missions they’d flown since. 

It's not nothing. They airtest the kite, and Poe gets such a headache from the altitude he can barely see straight. After they land, the flu digs in hard, and he's sick as a dog by dinner, confined to the medical centre by the evening.

Dr Kalonia isn't terribly sympathetic. The medical wing is heaving, the particularly virulent strain of influenza putting down at least one out of every crew in Squadron. It's treated aggressively — those afflicted are immediately put into isolation, which means after Poe has been bullied down to the medical centre by the whole crew he's not allowed any contact with them again.

There’s a period when he's completely incapable of keeping down any solids. Kalonia has him moved him to one of the few single rooms so he can at least retch his guts up in private, but with his consciousness skewed by weakness and fever, it starts to feel like some sort of torture chamber. He lies, sweating, sleeping, for how many days or nights he doesn't know, dreaming of flying over Germany, of cities that are black where they aren't on fire, of depthless, endless craters in a city that could be London, could just as easily be Berlin. Long, empty corridors big enough to fly _R-Rapier_ down. Climbing the cliffs at the bottom of the garden in Devon, losing his footing, falling — holes blown through the middle of _R-Rapier_ , engines straining —

He wakes with a start and a gasp, his sore throat making itself known. The sounds of the rough engines are Chewie, who is curled on the bed between Poe's stomach and his thighs. He's so grateful for the company he doesn't even move to shove Chewie off, and he lets the sound of the thing's harsh purring him put him back to sleep.

Poe sleeps through the night, keeps down breakfast, then lunch, and his temperature goes back to normal. He becomes a pain to the medical staff, and by nightfall is released but not to duty, told to go straight from the medical centre bed to his own. To emphasise this point he's not allowed any actual clothes; just his pyjamas, and a gown over the top.

He doesn't make it that far — turning into the corridor with the rooms assigned to _R-Rapier's_ crew, he tries the door to the Prince's room, and finding it unlocked, goes inside.

The room is configured for Luke to be airborne; flight gear, charts and flight case missing. He assumes they're night-testing _R-Rapier_ with some stand-in pilot, and Poe feels a moment of intense possessiveness, which gradually drains away as he looks around Luke's room, for the first time getting a good look at it without distraction.

Overlaid on the standard furniture are Luke's personal touches. Above the desk is the same air chart of Europe, the routes across to common targets marked. A neat stack of TAFs, weighed under several interminable navigation tomes. Two photographs pinned beneath the chart — the first is two ladies in the front facade of Balmoral, small, and dark haired: Princess Leia and Rey, with two enormous hounds at their feet. The second photograph is the crew, in front of _R-Rapier_ , Luke standing between Snap and Finn, somewhat dwarfed by both. Lek, Bastian and BB knelt in the next row, steadying Poe himself, who had in a moment of flippancy decided to lie across the front. They're all laughing, _R-Rapier_ sitting enormous and squat behind them.

Luke's logbook is missing. Instead there's a sealed envelope underneath; properly sealed, with wax, and on the front; "To Whom It May Concern". Next to it, a small-leather bound book. In gold lettering across the front, _G.L.A.S, HRH_.

Poe’s intrigued, but doesn’t reach for it; even if snooping wasn’t a distasteful crime Luke's handwriting is an effectively indecipherable code. He sits down on Luke's bed instead and pulls his legs up, toe-ing off his slippers, settling his still slightly fuzzy head into Luke's pillow. It smells like Luke, and Poe breathes deeply; for a second back at Balmoral, Luke’s room, settling down companionably to sleep, before the night had taken such a surreal and miserable turn.

He lets himself doze — it is medically mandated, after all. Luke will be back after flying to leave his gear, and maybe they can go to dinner together, properly lay the quarrel — was it a quarrel? — to rest. Poe's sleep is feverless, and for the first time since the tour started, dreamless. When he wakes his body feels heavy, a feeling quickly eradicated by the adrenaline from the light switch thrown, igniting the entire room.

Luke is in the doorway. Full flying gear — suit over uniform, Mae West lifejacket. Dressed for more than an air test — Poe looks at the clock and it's fucking 0600.

Luke's eyes are wide with surprise. "Poe," He says. Not 'skip', the tone entirely interrogative. "What are you doing here?"

"Got bored of medical." Poe peers at Luke, taking in the exhausted set around his eyes. "Have you just… was that a mission?"

Luke swallows, his throat working once, before he answers, "Biggs Darklighter has the same influenza you did. 208 Squadron asked for back-up, Han's been sending composite crews."

Wedge Antilles' navigator. "You just flew with _R-Rogue._ " Poe surmises. The realisation is enough to give Poe strength to stand, any residual dizzyness from the flu gone.

"Yes," Luke replies. "Vechta. Incendiaries and a couple of cookies. Target indicators from the Pathfinders a little on the piss again, but we made do."

"You flew with Wedge Antilles?"

With both Luke and Poe standing, there isn't a lot of space in the room. Luke has begun to shrug off his clobber, but stops now, meeting Poe's eyes squarely."Is there a problem?"

"You're fucking right there's a problem." And alright, Poe feels a bit ridiculous doing this, wearing his pyjamas, having just come from his nav's bed. But Poe can can smell avgas on Luke and the unmistakeable ozone-like scent of burning Germany. "I don't know whether this has escaped your notice, your highness — " Luke shudders then, involuntarily, or maybe it was just the cold as he unzips the first layer of flying suit — "but you are my responsibility."

Luke drops the zip he’s holding, his hand falling to his side. After a moment he says, "Poe, there are countless numbers of reasons and ways in which I am _not_ your responsibility."

"I'm just talking about one, Luke. I'm your skipper. That's my job —"

"And navigating Lancasters is mine." The interruption is brutal, but Luke's tone wavers, a shade higher than normal. Poe has learnt by now how quickly Luke's voice could turn into something dangerously close to a whine. In the daily bickering — once a blazing row about using landmarks for navigation — it is oddly adorable. Right now, Poe might hit him.

Luke goes on, each word carefully chosen, “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better, flight lieutenant, but may I remind you that at our last discussion you made it clear there is nothing unique about my part in this war." He uses Poe’s rank like something poisonous, designed to wound. "It doesn’t behove you to imply otherwise now.”

“This isn’t about you having some sort of martyr’s complex —”

Luke’s face empties. He looks nearly ten years older. “Then you had better tell me what this is about, sharpish.” His voice falls back to its normal register. "You've leant Niv out before, Snap twice to _R-Rogue_. Spare me the hypocrisy of implying that your navigator filling in on another crew is any different."

The express order stops Poe cold, those exact words dying on his tongue. Luke drops his Mae West angrily on his desk. The sound makes Poe flinch, as Luke barrels on, "I've had many people — good people, far better than me — give more of themselves than I could ever ask for me, simply because I am a Skywalker. Or expected me to give less."

Poe feels his chest lock up, at the look in Luke's eyes. He says, "This isn't some sort of chivalrous bollocks, Luke."

"Leia feels she was doing me a service, assigning me to you, but I am sorry for the way she manipulated your feelings and your skills. That you seem to think that you owe me a duty beyond what a skipper ordinarily would, that you would assume I'm above, or beneath, flying with another crew. I rather hoped I'd proven to you that I wasn't worth it. That I was just your navigator."

Poe feels his fist close at his side. Luke is halfway out of his flight suit; he ties the arms around his waist as he speaks, meeting Poe’s eye directly. "I am here for the exact same reason as you — to do a bloody job. So you'll excuse me if I, as your senior in rank and time on the planet, shut down whatever guff you want to feed me about my being allowed to fly with only you."

Luke sits down on the foot of the bed, leaving Poe still standing. He looks more than exhausted — he looked wrung out, by the speech, by the night. Over his shoulder through the window Poe can see the beginning of the morning, which is dawning grey, and himself reflected back.

Poe's body is humming. His fist is still closed; he opens it deliberately, as Luke bends forward, putting his arms on this thighs and bowing his back. Poe knows that not all of his words are meant for him — this is Luke, fagged out after a mission, hitting back against a status he didn't ask for but has done his best with, against large odds that are not of his doing.

Poe's path to this war was simpler. He is a man of natural talent, comprehensible destiny, and clear purpose — his sureness of himself, and what he wants, he knows has always been one of his strengths. It's what allows him to say, after a moment in the face of his anger and Luke's response, "I'm sorry, Luke, if I gave you the impression that my feelings for you were simply to protect a prince of middling diplomatic skills, or even a relatively competent navigator."

Luke manages a half-smile, then, and Poe feels some of the tension drain from the conversation. Luke squints up at him as Poe says, "My feelings are not, as you have just taken such length to theorise, based purely on a need to protect you. For your sister, or, as I said, any chivalrous bollocks. You and I both know there's nothing knights-and-castles about what we do over Germany. My objection to you flying with Wedge — leaving aside the fact that he is one of the most insane pilots I've seen in the Western territories and I would object to flying even a milkrun with him — is not about keeping you safe.”

Luke looks up at him, eyes the same color as sky outside. “What’s it about then?”

Poe reaches for him; Luke stands without hesitation. Poe reflects dimly that if this goes wrong he can blame illness — and then puts his hand into the small of Luke’s back, pulling Luke close enough to touch his forehead to Luke’s. He puts his hand, warm, against the back of Luke’s chilled neck. “It's about not wanting you to fucking die without me." 

It hangs in the air between them. Something has been bared, and he feels the shudder as Luke processes it. Finally he takes Poe’s elbows, meeting his eye directly as he says, "And I thought my family are supposed to be the dramatic ones." 

"Well, sod you, Luke, I have Latin ancestry." Poe grins, and then shivers. "Can I get back into bed now? I'm supposed to be sick. If you want to join me, you’re welcome.”

Luke looks scandalised for about a second, before he manages the other half of the smile, releasing Poe’s arms. “At the risk of repeating myself — what a gentleman you are, skipper, allowing me into my own bed.” But he smiles anyway, gesturing to the bed and allowing Poe in first. Poe watches as he makes short work of stripping to boxers and vest — no ridiculous pyjamas on squadron — and turns the light off, before joining him. 

They end up facing each other, Poe with one arm thrust untidily under the pillow, his free arm along his own side in what he assumes is prim. Luke mirrors his position, and they stare at each other in the eerie light the retreating darkness is leaving.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said at Balmoral.” Luke moves his cheek against the pillow. “About my father. About how...similar we are now. I’m far older than he was when he stepped on his first battlefield, and this isn’t the mud of Ypres… I hoped to avoid his world. I hoped… I hope to avoid becoming him.”

Poe reaches for Luke’s arm, smooths his thumb over the cap of Luke’s shoulder. “I made the same choice. Papa told me to stay out of the mud. ‘Course then mum backed it up by reading me the entire Biggles collection during my formative years, so my becoming a pilot was largely her fault. I made her paint all the models of Sopwiths and Fokkers dad and I put together. Steadiest hands.”

Luke smiles. “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

“She is. Can’t bake worth a damn, but she and Gran run the farm so well she rarely needs to.”

“My mother...she wasn’t the same when my father came back. He wasn’t the same. It was like he was two people, like part of him was destroyed in France. I remember them being so unhappy it was nearly tangible." Poe watches as Luke wets his lips, hesitant to continue. “Balmoral was...was where we went to ground. We all went there together but we could go weeks without seeing mother or father. It was like they were locked in their own world, father's pain, and mother's love for him. It almost eclipsed her love for us.”

Poe keeps his thumb moving over Luke’s shoulder, and lets him speak. They’ve been silent on what they’d discussed in the cold corridor in Balmoral; he feels relief at hearing it addressed now.

“Obi-Wan looked after us. He was father’s oldest friend, and he loved us like his own children. For a few years he saw us right, while mother looked after father. It got...it got easier, but I could never forgive father what he had done. And I can never forget it wasn’t just our family who felt loss; it was thousands of others as well.”

_Mine,_ Poe thinks, but doesn’t say it. He doesn’t blame Luke, had struggled to blame Anakin. He says, “I know what it’s like to…to grieve for someone. For your family to be altered without your consent. For...for what it’s worth, _I_ won’t leave you.” Poe promises.

Luke’s pupils are wide in the dim light. “You can’t promise that.”

Poe smiles. “You’re a damn sight more like your sister than anyone will give you credit for. She said something very similar to me upon our first meeting. Alright, how about I won’t leave you tonight.”

Luke says, “A touching promise, but there’s no night left.”

Poe nudges him with his knee under the blanket. “Don’t be a pedant, it doesn’t become you.”

“Woe betide you find me unbecoming, skipper." 

“Chance,” Poe yawns, his jaw clicking uncomfortably, “Would be a fine thing.”

Poe reflects that Luke really should have had a better response than just rolling his eyes, before closing them and making no more movement, clearly making a bid for sleep. Poe lets his hand slip to the mattress between them, leaving the tips of his fingers touching Luke’s chest, before doing the same.

They sleep through the morning and then most of the day, in rhythm with their night-time war.

. . .

“And how was that for you sir? Looked pretty wide from over here it did! Couldn’t leave the bloody ducks in peace, could you? You better not have hit any swans, sir, they all belong to his mum!” Nunb jerks his thumb at Luke, who’s pulling his headgear off, hair slicked dark. He looks fucked. Poe doubts he looks any better; his forearms feel seized from the strain of flying, his legs rubbery from the last two hours of holding _R-Rapier_ steady.

“No swans were harmed,” Poe replies, signing the afterflight that Nunb puts in front of him without more than a cursory glance — his signature is unrecognisable, all co-ordination from his hands gone. “Despite BB’s best efforts.”

“As collateral damage goes,” BB muses thoughtfully, “A bunch of birds, royal or not, is not hugely damning.”

“You gonna stand for that? Your mom’s property getting blown to smithereens?” Finn says to Luke. He wears adrenaline like intoxication; big smiles, leaning on BB in the same manner both Lek and Bastian are prone to, that ticks the kid off no end. The gunners are inspecting the tail machine gun position; Lek is pulling a leafed twig disbelievingly from where it’s been caught on the aircraft, a testament to how low Antilles had led them on this training mission.

“I assure you my mother has bigger concerns than us taking out a couple of swans.”

“Do you mind,” BB says to Finn. 

“Not in the slightest,” Finn replies, and then, in a terrible accent, “There’s a good chap.”

Sergeant Pava, who has come to join them, flicks her leg up at the knee, catching Finn’s hip with her uniform shoe in a sharp kick. “Don’t bully him.”

“Yes ma’am,” Finn drops his arm instantly.

“Stop pissing off the sarge,” Snap shouts from beneath _Rapier_ ’s port inner engine. “Next time she bruises one of you I’ll make sure the boss has you up on a self-inflicted.”

“Thank you, Flight Lieutenant Wexley.”

“And you — stop beating up my crew, you bloody Amazon.”

“You lot.” Poe addresses his crew collectively, raising his voice — it cracks from tiredness but he barrels on. “Stop talking bullshit. Declobber and go and get the kettle on for a debriefing on that madness.”

There's a cacophony of "Aye, skips." There’s a weary note to it, after the jovial banter; the training run was a fucking fiasco, on top of three previous fiascos.

Whitehall, getting bored of wasting explosives and crews on the Ruhr valley have decided to flood the Godforsaken place instead by collapsing the dams above the valley. The ‘bouncing bomb’ intended to carry out this objective and invented in some nutjob’s back garden has somehow managed to capture the imagination of Air Chief Marshall Windu at Bomber Command. It had then been a subject of largely academic interest to Han’s squadron -- until someone got the bright idea of sending flight elements of elite crews from the top heavy bomber squadrons. Which translates into special tasking for _R-Rapier_ , _R-Rogue_ , and _F-Falcon._

The bomb itself is a bitch of a load. To collapse the dams, the bombs need to skip along the surface like the stones Poe used to skip across the ocean with Kes when he was little -- to achieve this the load is mounted outside the aircraft on a rotating shaft, spun to speed in the final approach and to be released at an ideal height that has so far eluded all of them. _Rapier_ , _Falcon_ and _Rogue’s_ crews have been taken off regular ops to train for the lunacy, dropping dummy explosives over the wet Cambridge fenland in imitation of the German industrial valleys, none so far on target.

Luke hangs back with Poe as the others pile into the land rover, holding up his chart. “I’d like to chat with Charlie and Biggs before the debrief, if that’s okay with you? See if they had as much of a time of it as we did?”

Poe nods. “Good plan.”

“Looks like you’re up for a pilot’s conflab as well.” Luke nods over Poe’s left shoulder — Poe glances and sees the Wing Commander plodding determinedly in their direction from _F-Falcon_ ’s hangar, Antilles at his shoulder.

“Indeed. Let’s get everyone back together in forty? Tell Pava to get going, I’ll come back with the boss class.”

“Aye aye skip.” Luke sketches a salute and smiles, climbing into the land rover’s rear bench.

When Han arrives, he’s sweating, headgear and gauntlets scrunched into one fist. He looks knackered; Antilles the same, carrying it slightly better. Both look grim.

“So, hotshot. What d’you think?”

Poe thinks back over the training run, squints at Han. “Remind me why the Bumptious Bastard can’t get this done alone, sir?” he says, referring to Wing Commander Gibson, a memorable git from officer training, and Leader of this particular mission.

Han grunts. “I’d tell you to watch your mouth where your senior officers are concerned, Dameron, but I haven’t been on that asshole’s Christmas card list since ‘38 either, so I’ll let it slide.” Han scratches the back of his head. “You didn’t get any closer than we did, then?”

Poe shook his head, thinking of the almighty splash, of BB’s surprisingly colourful swear when it became immediately clear the training drop had gone wide of the mark.

“Neither did we. Not even him.” Han jerks his thumb at his second. “This isn’t working.”

“We’re too high.” Antilles says flatly.

“I’ve learnt to ignore you, Veggie, when you say shit like that. We’re going to have to get your altimeter checked; we were at least two hundred feet lower than the first time we tried this. Any more and we’ll be bouncing ballistics ourselves.”

Antilles holds his silence, clearly used to Han’s histrionics, as they climb into a vehicle that pulls up for them, Connix at the wheel.

The crews gather later in one of the briefing rooms, warming mugs of tea with coffee in hand, as they glumly reocunt the events of the training. Antilles repeats his statement from earlier, about lowering the release altitude; “It’s just geometry.”

Snap shakes his head. “It’s not just that, Wedge. The kites are too heavy. These bombs are too fucking big; larger than anything we’ve carried so far. The Lanc just isn’t built for this lunacy.”

Han, who has remained restrained throughout the meeting, letting the crews air their frustrations, has a typed missive on his desk. He reveals it with a flourish, and then wordlessly hands it to Snap. “From Wing Commander Gibson. You’re not going to like this.”

He isn’t wrong.

. . .

The next morning, Poe is awake at 0540. They’ve been daylight training for the dams raid, his body adapting to the normal schedule with the ease proportional to the difficulty it had been to adjust to night time ops. The lost sleep frustrates him; the modifications to the Lancaster that Gibson’s engineers have ordered are so extreme that all crews have been stood down while the bad news was broken to, and then undertaken by, the respective mechanics, and Poe could have slept in.

He tries to roll over and go back to sleep, but his mind is stubbornly awake; a hangover from spitfires, when he had learnt to go from deep unconsciousness to running across the field into the pre-flight checks in a matter of moments. He pads from the Officer’s Mess in search of a hot cup of tea.

Most of the base is still on bomber time, and he expects the place to be deserted. His course through the Mess takes him through the corridor past the Boss’s room, made distinctive by Chewie’s ornate milk bowl sitting outside. He skids to a deeply undignified halt when the door the room opens abruptly, a figure exiting and immediately poleaxing him with a frank stare: Princess Leia Skywalker, hair around her shoulders, wearing one of Han’s uniform shirts over trousers. 

“This isn’t the scandal you’re looking for," she says, doing up the top button on the shirt.  

“This isn’t… ma’am.” He clears his throat. “I mean — your highness — ma’am—”

“No need to blather, Mr Dameron. I trust I can count on your discretion?”

“You can, ma’am.” He doesn’t trust himself to smile, feels as grave as a churchmouse.

“Is that Dameron?” Han’s voice, from inside the room.

“It is.” She calls back, raising her voice unselfconsciously in the deserted corridor. “Looking rather like the deer caught in the headlights." 

“Try not to claw his eyes too badly, dear.”

“I still don’t enjoy being compared to a raptor, Wing Commander,” Leia tosses over shoulder. “I’ll see you in London.”

“Yes ma’am,” Han calls back, the inflection in the honorific entirely American and not altogether salubrious.

“On your way, Mr Dameron. And the very best of luck with the dams mission.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He inclines his head and scuttles quickly down the corridor.

He sits in the Mess for half an hour, his tea cup eagerly attended to by the Mess lad, trying to overcome the encounter. He’s the only one at his table, all the senior crews too jaded to be out of their beds yet and any junior crews too nervous to approach. Poe’s not sure when this happened, exactly which mission of their twelve turned him into an old hand, a venerable presence in a Mess where the average number of trips before a crew bought it was seven. Even so far from the end of their tour, and only in his mid twenties, he feels ancient.

A figure in a black suit appears in front of him. Not the grim reaper; _Luke_.

His suit is exquisitely tailored; Luke’s wearing a VII Squadron tie, RAF pins and cufflinks. Poe blinks at him; the tailoring is more bespoke than Luke’s uniform, outlining the lines of his body closely. It's the first time perhaps ever Poe has seen him wear anything but uniform or sleepwear. It makes him keenly aware of the access Han must have had to the Princess’s person, the realisation begetting a sharp bolt of jealousy.

“Skipper—”

“What’s all this in aid of?” He nods at the suit.

“My sister’s here. She...the Russians want to negotiate.”

Poe struggles to process the words, still a little dazzled by the suit, the recent encounter with said sister. “She...right. Blimey. And you— she’s taking you?”

Luke nods, a miserable, stressed set to his mouth. “I’ve worked with the team they’re sending before.”

“Thought Ivan had sided elsewhere? That they’d leave the dirty business to the likes of us?”

Luke smiles ruefully. “They’ve always liked the set of us, me and Leia.”

“Your sister wants you there.” Poe says it aloud, not liking the sound of it. He watches the play of emotions across Luke’s face, guilt winning out.

“Yes.” Luke says simply. “I am so sorry, skip — Leia told me only the utmost of important duties would take me away from the Squadron. I — this qualifies.”

“They’d be a powerful ally.” Poe agrees. “Well worth the crew missing out on a trip, even...even this business.” But he plays back Leia’s words in his head — _good luck for the dams mission_.

As he does so, Luke says, “Would you mind awfully apologising to the crew for me for them sitting this one out?”

“I should think they’ll be thanking you, missing out on this particular lunacy. We can make the time up.”

“I'll be back.” Luke says forcefully. “Leia will try to keep me, but I’ll be back.”

Poe rubs at his forehead. It’s not even half past six yet, too early for this; he’s still exhausted by the training from the day before, blindsided from the encounter with Leia, the knowledge she’s here to pluck Luke from them. 

“We’ll be here. If you’re as bad a diplomat as you say, there’ll still be plenty of war left, the Great Russian Bear behind the British Bulldog or no.”

Luke smiles, inclining his head in goodbye, his fingers closing around Poe’s arm. The feel of his grip lingers for hours.

. . .

Han’s engineers call a halt to the modifications for _F-Falcon_ and _R-Rogue_ midway through the morning, nearly striking. Nunb and his crew had been relieved that the extreme modifications weren’t going to be necessary for _R-Rapier_ , the crew to be stood down in Luke’s absence, and offer their fellow engineers fags and coffee when they throw the towel in. The pilots are sympathetic, not one of them wanting to see regular Lancasters mutilated to the extent the mission was calling for, and simply not to be achieved safely in the timescale given. Stripped out external Lancs are being sent down instead, to arrive that evening or the morning after.

With the external aircraft not due for hours, a cricket game ensues on the small lawn outside the Mess after the crews begin to climb the walls, the crews of _Rapier_ and _Falcon_ challenging _Rogue_ and the crew of _C-Cloud._ They pull on ill-fitting cricket whites unearthed from somewhere in the Mess, and even Han joins in, although he flatly refuses the cricket bat, swinging a baseball bat and nothing else. After they've explained the basics of bowling versus pitching to Finn he proves himself a powerful arm, more than equal to Gavin Darklighter’s; it becomes a hotly contested derby, the winner to claim a very fine bottle of Scotch. 

Poe, enjoying the physical exercise, is struck once more by the switchback nature of bombing life; the day before they’d been training for possibly the most dangerous mission yet dreamed up by Bomber Command; today he’s watching Wedge Antilles make an illegal rugby tackle on Wexley, everyone else grousing about the light rain that had blighted the otherwise jolly game. Tomorrow, he knows, Han and Antilles will be bound for the Ruhr.

Han disappears midway through, summoned by Connix. When he returns, Poe is lying in the grass, out of breath, having just scored a run for his team. Han appears over him, larger form blocking out the grey sun above him.

“Sir,” Poe nods from his prone position.

“Up you get, Dameron. Sub in your benchwarmer; I got a surprise for you.”

Poe plays the Americanism back in his head; he means put in the twelfth man; in this case, BB, on the bench but actually chatting to the very pretty WAAF driver attached to _C-Cloud_. He whistles and sees BB’s head look around for the sound. 

“Bertie,” Poe shouts, clear across the field. “You have control.”

BB makes a face of apology at the WAAF, and jogs into Poe’s spot, looking slightly put-out.

“Ruining the fun of the juniors, sir,” Poe laughs, as he follows Han from the field.

Han grunts; “Thought I was supposed to be running a Squadron of Mrs Skywalker’s flying monkeys, not a ‘knocking shop’.” The latter is said in a terrible British accent.

Poe thinks of the Princess that morning, decides not to mention it.

In the boss’ office a  dark, serious-eyed flight lieutenant stands in front of the desk, a navigator flash on his battledress breast pocket.

“Present for you, Dameron.”

“Flight Lieutenant Muran,” The navigator holds out his hand to Poe. “I’ve been assigned to your crew for the dams raid.”

“Muran joins us from Lincoln; he was supposed to fly on one of the reserve crews, but there was a little creative poaching when Leia went winging back to London with the kid in her claws.” Han explains.

If Muran is scandalised by Han’s reference to the substitution, he doesn’t show it. Poe knows that orders with a royal letterhead tend to have that effect.

“Run along and get settled in, Muran,” Han says. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other before we all head out to the Ruhr.”

“Pleasure to meet you, skipper.” Muran says. Poe just about manages to return the sentiment, holding his emotions until the door has closed behind him.

Han busies himself with a cigar from the box at his desk. As he fusses with his lighter, he says, not meeting Poe’s eye, “I know you saw Leia leaving yesterday.”

“I’ll be discreet.”

Han snorts, an undignified sound with the cigar between his teeth. “It’s hardly a state secret, although not for lack of trying on the PM’s part. She knows all about this bouncing bomb bullshit.”

It’s beginning to click into place for Poe. “She did wish me luck, sir.”

“Don’t need luck, do you Dameron? You guys have made a habit of surviving stupid odds; here you are, at twelve missions. Nearly halfway to your first tour.”

“My nav’s sitting at thirteen, sir.”

“‘Bout time he sat one out then, isn’t?” Han lights the cigar with a great flourish.

Poe lets out a breath, anger coming all at once. “And this one — in Lancasters with the internal armour torn out, no-upper gun turret, and the bomb bay doors removed? With insertion routes ten times below than anything we’ve flown before, the final approach so low the altimeter won’t even be reliable?”

Han just grins at him. It looks like a grimace.

Poe says, “Luke won’t like it when finds out.”

“Oh, all kinds of drama I’m sure is on the horizon.” Han puffs, filling the room with a greying smoke. The smell wakes Chewie, sleeping on the corner of the desk, so still until now Poe hasn’t noticed him. “I’m also sure you’re more than up to the task of fielding that particular fastball.”

“And I'll get Luke back, when we return?”

Han grins around the cigar, leaning to scratch Chewie’s head. “Better come back alive to find out.”

“You're… close with the Princess,” Poe says, sounding baldly euphemistic. “Any idea why this mission, she's getting cold feet? This one has a certain novelty, maybe, but she knows every missions is just as fraught with danger.” He doesn’t need to remind Han, on whose orders dozens of crews and airplanes have been left in wrecks the length of four countries.

“Apparently flying this bomb load under these conditions is her limit. Their cousins are German, you know — if Luke _and_ Leia are killed, the line of succession gets pretty murky.”

“With all due respect sir—”

Han holds up his hand to stop him. “I know,” he says. “I know. Let's just get it done, alright?”

Poe wants to let him off; there’s a weary note to his voice. His office is bigger than Poe’s and Luke’s room put together, as befitting his loftier station on the squadron, but scarce on the personal touches beyond Chewie’s paraphernalia, and a candid framed photograph of Leia on the table. Poe for a second, fleetingly, he thinks about how ridiculous it is, these personal lives, loves, sublimated beneath the war machine.

“You guys gonna cut it tomorrow?” Han says, bringing Poe’s attention back to the matter at hand.

Poe says, “I’ll be following the example of my betters, sir — Wedge Antilles will be in lead position. I’ll follow his tail lights down.”

“And I’ll be up your ass, so don’t lurk over the target. In, out, and don’t shake it all about. Speed’s gonna be key.”

“Right you are, sir.”

. . .

The dams raid is called Operation Chastise; punishment by starvation, flooding the industrial plains and depriving cities and canals of a water supply. Despite the lack of the Prince the crew is eager for the mission, and Poe gets not one word of complaint when he introduces Muran and affirms they’re on after all. The targets could prove to be decisive, a telling blow against the enemy proving relentless. BB, whose brother is still missing, chalks ‘For Artu’ on one of the bouncing bombs, and Poe pretends not to notice, making sure to give the lad’s shoulder a firm squeeze as they board their temporary steed.

Their modified Lancaster is a stripped out old cow called _R-Red,_ with no internal armour, no mid-upper gun turret. Bastian mans the front air gunner position, leaving BB free to babysit the unusual bomb load. Settling into the cockpit, Poe takes a few moments to observe Muran snapping charts out over Luke’s station with a crack that spoke of mechanical efficiency. He’s a stark contrast to Luke’s easy way with the equipment, his plotting as gentle as if he was simply setting out a game of chess; Muran’s movements are sharp, definite, crisp like the corners of his chart. He gives Poe their first heading before they’re even airborne.

They take-off in tight formation with Han’s _E-Eravana_ and Antilles’ _W-Wraith_ just before 2200, settling themselves with _W-Wraith_ in the lead, forming their designated attack element. They fly as one beast, Antilles’s piloting skill making him easy to follow and keep pace with, _E-Eravana_ as tail arse-charlie. The searchlights near Hamm lattice the sky in a raking hand, and Han’s sparks gets them to scatter; a triangulation from more than two searchlights will destroy them, the flak deadly to any lit up Lancaster. Poe enjoys the moment of flying autonomy as they move through, before the sparks call them back to formation as effectively as Han whistling for Chewie to heel (a trick of the cat’s that never ceases to amaze Poe).

They meet the element from Wing Commander Gibson’s squadron over Vlieland, and begin the descent to insertion height, calculated to take them low enough to minimise the flak around the airbases at Eindhoven. Poe throttles back and watches as the altimeter unwinds into the stiff descent; he’s uncomfortable this low but knows it’s nothing compared to the upcoming dams approach. The crew are subdued, concentrating, aware of their position as part of a small, select wing led by powers even beyond Solo; Gibson, Hopgood, names with serious clout in the Bomber fraternity, and the hope of Whitehall on their shoulders.

As they move below two hundred feet, all Poe’s myriad thoughts and feelings that occupy his head — the anger and disquiet at being in a changed crew, fatigue from the missions — disappear into a single burning concentration on not twitching and putting the thing directly into the ground.

They’re drawing level with the tops of trees when Muran announces, voice cool, “Beginning final approach to the Mohne dam, skipper.”

Finn says, “ _G-George_ and Gibson’s element have engaged.” This becomes immediately obvious when the flak towers flanking the dams burst into life, filling the sky. Poe’s never seen them from this low angle before; the sight is terrifying.

“Entering hold pattern.” Poe reports, putting her into a left turn, following Antilles. 

“ _E-Eravana_ reporting the same.” Finn says.

The shallow turning manoeuvre, waiting for Gibson to scout the target, is unbearable in its gentleness. BB has begun the bomb spinning up on its mounting, an unnerving noise.

As they finish their turn, a great turret of water explodes vertically from the dam.

“Holy shit,” Bastian breathes. “Has the bastard done it, left nothing for us?”

Poe spares a glance at the target; just sees the water clearing, concrete dam still intact. He sees Antilles’ tail lights ending the turn on a new heading for the dam.

“Negative,” Finn confirms. “ _G-George_ has ordered us to engage.”

“Oh, _jolly good_ , just as they’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest,” Lek sighs. “Better go and save his arse, then.”

“Descending.” Poe says, _W-Wraith’s_ tail lights dipping towards the brightly lit dam, awash in churning water and anti-aircraft fire. “Muran, confirm sixty feet.”

“On it, skipper.”

“This,” Snap remarks, almost laconically, “Is fucking dangerous, skip.”

“Cut the chatter.” Muran bites off, before Poe can. Poe senses Snap shift behind him, hears him let out an irritated breath on the comms, but he keeps his peace. No distractions, as he follows Antilles down, down. 

“Off altimeter,” Muran calls, shifting so he can see the two lights fitted to the bottom of _R-Red_ ; when their beams meet on water’s surface, the plane is at release height. “And hold it...there.”

Poe trims for the height, holding course behind Antilles as they move to attack. This close to the surface of the water the speed feels incredible, a sensation completely missing flying higher. They’re lit up, and under fire for the whole approach — Poe runs through in his mind the flight pattern after the bomb’s release, wants more speed for the escape. He can sense the water beneath them as Wedge’s bombs explode in sequence. He listens to BB, for the magic words—

“Bombs gone, Skip!” BB shouts, elated—

Poe pushes the throttle forwards in preparation to gain height, breathing hard. Finn’s voice comes through in the on the internal comms just as he’s about to pull upwards. “Don’t fucking climb, Skip — the boss has engaged, just above our position.” Finn, through the astrodome, has the best upward view. “Hold her down for just a few—”

A second searchlight finds them, bathing the cockpit indiscriminately in a naked white-out. The dam’s collapsing, but not fast enough, not enough to take down the flak gunners with it, to whom _R-Red_ is now a fat, low target. No getting out.

Poe, unlike many of his flying brethrin, has not envisioned the moment of his death. He’d decided that when it came, he’d be the only one who wouldn’t remember it. Seeing it now, happening in slow motion, the crew talking about it around them — trapped between water and sky, it feels more surreal than anything he’s ever experienced. Time seems to slow, the seconds containing whole oceans of thought -- who will get _Rapier_ with six sevenths of the crew dead, that Leia will _never_ let her brother back, that he’s been home to the farm for the last time, the embrace his mother gave him when he boarded the train to Cambridge was the last one, _God that flak feels—_

He begins, “All crew—”  
  
The flak towers suddenly _disappear_ under fire of .303 shells from a Lancaster, erupting as their armaments ignite, falling away to the black valley with the rest of the dam.

“What the —”

Poe’s sentence is interrupted again by a Lancaster passing low and to their right, opposite direction. Its upper turret stops flashing as they pass within close range. 

“Skip.” It’s Finn. “Squadron Leader Antilles is asking if we ‘need our hedge trimming’.”

Poe doesn’t reply for a few moments, too busy hauling _R-Red_ up and away from the collapsing dam. He doesn’t even want to think about the manoeuvre Antilles must have pulled to reverse course and destroy the flak towers for them, probably dropping into the valley itself.

Snap says, “I’m going to fucking kill him. With my bare hands.”

“Ah, true love,” Finn laughs, hysterical.

Once established in a climbing turn Poe orders, “Tell him…” He tries to think of something witty, but his sarcasm function is flooded by the intense sense of animal relief not to be in flaming bits over the Ruhr. “Tell him ‘thank you.’”

“Skip, _W-Wraith_ replies, ‘you’re welcome’.”

After that, Bastian getting his sixth kill — as the dam recedes behind them, an ME 110 trying his luck — seems almost uneventful. Muran notes it on the navigation log; time and location.

“Boss says, ‘Let’s go the fuck home’, skipper.” Finn says.

“Couldn’t agree more. Navigator, course for the coast.”

. . .

“God, I can’t believe I’m going to have to buy Antilles a drink.” Snap’s voice is the first thing Poe hears as he pulls his headgear off. Poe rubs at his eyes, holding his hands over his face for just a second, _R-Red’_ s engines whining to a stop behind him. She’s in a right state, but she’s brought them home, and so Poe won’t fault her.

“Speaking of which — bar, bloody asap. Get your flying kit off and prepare to get royally fucked up,” he yells back into the bus, to a resounding affirmative chorus from the disembarking crew.

“Your crew must be practised in that.” Muran smiles at Poe, as he pulls off his headgear, the first time Poe’s seen such an expression on him.

 “We are, rather, now I come to think of it.” Poe smiles back.

“An honor to fly with you.” Muran says, holding his hand out. “I understand I wasn’t your first choice, but thank you for letting me come along.”

“You weren’t.” Poe’s smile widens as he takes his hand. “But I’m bloody glad you were there all the same.”

“My train back to Lincoln’s been booked since I arrived,” Muran says. “Tomorrow morning. I very much intend to be extremely hungover on it.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Snap says. “Come on, you two.”

Poe and Muran wriggle out from _R-Red’s_ cockpit and make for the hatch. Poe claps Snap on the shoulders, squeezing, and saying, “Thank _fuck_ that’s over.”

Jumping down into Pava’s waiting banter, he misses Luke more than he has at any point in the mission; he claims the front seat next to Pava where he would have sat in the middle bench with Luke. He rides the wave of adrenaline in humming silence while the rest of the crew talks uproariously around him, shouting unheard bullshit at Antilles’ lot on the crew bus ahead, Han’s behind, in the same configuration as the attack run. He remembers, like a half-watched film, the dam giving way; the underwater detonations fanning into sprays of water, the solid wall of concrete surrendering, disappearing. He imagines, for just a second, the biblical scene of water flooding the valley, into buildings, factories, _houses_ —

— “Here we are, fine sirs.” Pava’s graceless use of the breaks literally jolts him from the train of thought, and he fumbles for the door handle. The night air feels keen in that way it always does after mission, not dulled after this, their thirteenth. His tally is even with Luke’s again. 

They shed flying gear and bang into the bar in a twenty-one strong gang, Poe’s still hyper alert; he can smell the cleaning agent last used in the Mess, nearly winces from the cheers of the rest of the squadron, welcoming back the ‘dambusters’. Poe hugs at least a half dozen people and downs a double shot of Scotch that’s pressed into his hand by God-knows-who by the time he actually makes to the bar—

—where Squadron Leader Skywalker is standing, in his RAF uniform, as if nothing has changed, next to three bottles of port and enough glasses to service three crews. For a second, Poe wonders if he did actually die on that mission, until he catches sight of the thunderous expression on Luke’s face.

“Skipper.” Fuck, had Luke always sounded that harsh? Luke’s mouth opened as if he was going to continue but he’s mobbed by _R-Rapier_ ’s crew, shaking hands and hugging and fending all manner of sentiments that generally amount to "we’re glad you’re back but Good Lord did you miss a show."

“I”m aware,” Luke says to BB, who does the best at articulating the sentiment. “I assure you it won’t happen again. Dameron, if I may have a word? In private?”

Luke holds a glass of port out to him; Poe takes it, and then follows his imperious stalk from the room, ignoring the protests from the rest of the crew. Luke leads, wordlessly, palpably fuming, through the nearest exit door and straight to their bank of personal rooms. Tactically it makes sense; the whole squadron is currently stuffed into every drinking hole available, so the chances of being overheard, even at shouting volume, are much lessened. Poe follows silently, making quick work of the port. 

Poe’s door is unlocked — Luke opens it and practically pushes Poe inside before throwing the lock. He’s vibrating aggression; it’s impressive, although nothing Poe hasn’t seen before to a lesser degree. But God damn it he’d nearly died tonight and the last thing he wants is more conflict.

He tries to set his argument out to Luke simply, shortcutting the front end of the conversation. “It was a _royal order,_ Luke. I swore obedience when I sold my life to your mum’s aeroplanes.”

The effect this has on Luke is remarkable; his eyes darken as he steps forward, anger cooling into something altogether more dangerous, as he draws himself to his full height — they are evenly matched. “Right,” he growls, the words clipped, and he pulls the glass of port from Poe’s hand, setting it firmly on the desk. “Since you're so good at obeying ‘ _royal orders’_ , here’s another; take your trousers off.”

Poe flounders. “What do you—”

“Do _not_ make me repeat myself.” And there it is, the years of privileged upbringing, military lineage, that Luke has done such a good job of apparently hiding all these months. “You heard me, Flight Lieutenant.”

Poe blinks, then grins. Luke’s tone is deadly serious but his mouth is parted, something like amusement in his expression alongside the anger.

As he undoes his flies, Poe says, “I’m going to send you away to the Russians more often—oof.” He’s unable to finish his sentence when Luke grabs hold of his hips and pushes, hard enough to completely unbalance him backwards across the bed. Luke tugs his loosened trousers from his hips, moving them down to Poe’s thighs, his thumb taking his undergarments with them; it becomes a dual effort but Poe is eventually left, trousers shackling his calves above his boots, knees spread.

Luke arranges himself between Poe’s legs, one hand on Poe’s knee; the other presses a finger to Poe’s lips. He growls, “Absolutely nothing more out of you, skipper.”

Poe holds up his hands in surrender. He’s smiling, deliriously, doesn’t care.

“Hands behind your head.” Luke has never, ever been this good at given orders; Poe obeys with slickness he hasn’t had since the officers’ drill square. “Keep them there, until I tell you otherwise.”

The sensation of Luke’s mouth on his cock is one Poe is ready for, but still unexpected enough for him to make a sound he can’t help, the contact hot, certain, generous. The gentleness of it belies Luke’s true mood; he can’t help moving his hips up, into his Prince’s mouth—fuck, _fuck_ —

Slave to the moment, his higher functions shortcut by the surety in Luke’s movements, Poe reaches his right hand for Luke’s head, taking a plentiful fist of blond hair, filling his palm with the shape of Luke’s skull. Luke takes the contact for a moment, before jerking his head up, grabbing Poe’s wrist and slamming it back to the bed, wide to the side, hissing, “ _What_ did I tell you, Dameron — I thought you were supposed to be excellent, the _very best_ , at _royal orders._ ”

Luke keeps the pressure on his hand but changes the grip, entwining their fingers, moving his head back to its previous occupation. Tailspin from the drink, the exhaustion and elation from the flight, flood Poe’s system and coalesce at the point of contact of Luke’s mouth, the suck of lips, teeth and tongue, everything Poe has never quite even dared imagine, only in the dead of the night, the darkness they share, surrounded by aircraft and blackness—

He’s not finished when Luke moves his head up, reaching with his free hand to pull the top buttons on Poe’s battledress, clumsy, with the hand that still bears the scars from the cold burns.

“My sister will be so very proud of you—” Luke says, and Poe can’t keep quiet.

“With all due respect to the crown Princess; can we fucking _not_ discuss your sister right now—”

Luke’s kiss shuts him up deliciously; more violence than affection as he feels Luke’s teeth on his lower lip, just a tiny nip. “I _said_ ,” Luke says, directly into Poe’s ear. “No more out of you.”

He feels Luke’s fingers around his cock, finishing what his mouth has started. Luke is apparently in a talkative mood; as he works into a rhythm, he goes on. “Never, ever _lie_ to me again. Never promise anything to me again. Like you said to me, this is fucking _war_ , and all I know is —”

Poe yelps, undone, and Luke pulls his hand from where they’re entwined to cover Poe’s mouth. “We proceed from now on, just like this — I am your navigator, you are my captain, and nothing will change that; you’re _mine._ ”

At that, Poe comes with a stifled shout, Luke’s mouth on his collarbone, grounding him through it. There’s a ringing in his ears, and he lies, unable to move, vaguely aware of Luke climbing up onto the bed next to him. Poe wants to stay there, every part of him relaxed, but he submits to Luke’s gentle prodding, undressing him the rest of the way, kicking off his boots until he’s bare apart from socks. He watches Luke strip to underwear, just about managing not to giggle with delight. Luke reaches for him with something like hunger, pulling the blanket folded at the top of the bed over them both. At Luke’s wordless insistence Poe rolls over obligingly, Luke’s bare chest warm against Poe’s back. He cuddles Luke’s hand close to his chest.

They lie there in quietness for a few moments, as they had in Luke’s bed, those weeks ago. Finally Luke says,“This might be the longest I’ve ever heard you so quiet.”

Poe snorts. “I was _ordered_ to shut up, if you care to recall.”

“...yes I suppose so. I’m sorry about... that.”

“Your turn to shut up, if that’s the sort of claptrap you’re going to pout.” He kisses Luke’s knuckles. “That was marvellous.”

“You’re alright then?”

Poe chuckles at the note of concern in Luke’s voice. “Never better. I’ll call us even now, then?”

“Rather.” He can hear Luke smile. “I’m glad you came back, skipper.”

“I’m glad _you_ came back, nav.”

Poe enjoys the silence for a few moments. Then he draws breath, opens his mouth to speak, not knowing what he’s about to say, when there’s a furious knock on the door.

Snap’s voice, clearly drunk, yells, “Skipper, you better not be shagging the Prince in there. We’ve just got the bastard back, don't want to scare him off with an exhibition of your paltry bedroom skills.”

Poe tells him to fuck off, in no uncertain terms, as Luke stifles his laughter into the back of Poe’s neck. Poe listens for the sounds of Snap lurching back down the corridor, before rolling them into reversed positions, Luke flush to his front.

He fingers Luke’s hipbone as he says, “Right, your highness. Time for the common man to get his revenge.”

. . .

 


	5. Part Five

**Part Five**

After the Dams, five missions follow in such quick succession Poe has problems keeping them distinct. Paderborn. Dresden. Berlin. Bad Pyrmont. Dresden-a-fucking-gain.

On the trip home from the second outing to Dresden there’s clear skies and bright stars, which gradually fade away the closer they get to the airfield —  Luke navs them with difficulty through occluded skies over the Channel, the cloud thickening into a soupy mass over Cambridge. _Rapier_ breaks the base of the murk at somewhere under two thousand feet, and Poe steers a flat, wide circuit into Dacre, eyeballing the runway with difficulty through the shitting rain. He lands _Rapier_ heavily, keeping her slow to touchdown by bleeding speed in the flare, dumping her firmly back on the ground to minimise chances of skidding on the wet tarmac. He taxis them back to their dispersal pan slowly, so as not to aquaplane on the grass; their hangar doors are shut against the weather, and he can sees Nunb’s crew running to push them open.

Pava is fucking absent as they disembark into the peak of the downpour, which does nothing for their mood. The crew is soaked in the few seconds it takes to leave the old cow, and huddle dispiritedly under _Rapier_ wet belly.

Not one person suggests staying on the aircraft; she smells like the shitstorm they’ve just left in Europe. Even the freezing rain is preferable, the air steaming with the smell of soaked tarmac and earth. They can hear the rest of the Squadron returning at irregular intervals, landing lights muzzy through the rain, disappearing into the gloom to their respective dispersals.

The crew stands and shivers. The gunners curse the Sarge before huddling together like penguins, making bobbing movements and giggling. Finn and Snap attempt to light fags, but the wind is not kindly disposed to the task. Poe makes a show of moving among the crew, rubbing their biceps to keep them warm, earning all manner of banter and deliberately leaving Luke until last, so he can linger. Luke smiles at him, grateful, tired, and Poe thinks of the shower he’ll get them both into soon; strip wet clothes and share the heat of the water, clean the night away and sleep all through morning in his narrow but warm bed.

He can see the airfield beyond their small huddle, the indistinct outlines of the blacked-out buildings. Poe looks over his aircraft, over Luke’s shoulders; impossible to tell the damage without more light. He can’t smell fuel.

“Fucking hero’s welcome this is,” Lek comments, idly kicking _Rapier’s_ tyre.

On cue, Pava pulls up in the team wagon and they clamber on, loudly relieved. The windows steam immediately — BB draws a noughts-and-crosses grid, and Finn obliges him.

Pava is unusually disinclined to humour; she misses the first sally from Niv, and then the second, conspicuously silent all the way to the kitroom. Upon arrival she says, quietly, to Luke —

“Sir. The Wing Commander is outside for you, once you’ve stowed your kit?”

Luke takes a moment to comprehend, but then he nods, looking a bit confused. “I’ll be out directly.”

Poe takes his time stripping off his flight suit and Mae West lifejacket, hoping to catch up with Luke later. He has the rest of the crew to see to — BB is asleep on his feet, needing to be shepherded in the direction of his bed by the gunners. Finn is talking at a million miles an hour, adrenaline exorcising itself verbally from his system. Snap is humouring him, replying to one out of every five sentiments requiring a response, but Poe can tell he’s doing so on autopilot.

Luke doesn’t reappear for their debriefing with the Intelligence section, and the crew separates to sleep. Alone in his room, Poe leaves his clothes in sorry piles around the room, a tiny part of him delighted in the disorder after the tight discipline of flying. He intends to have a fag and wait for Luke, but the flare of the lighter makes him flinch, so he clicks it shut and puts it back in his battledress pocket, on the floor next to his bed.

He lies down in the lightening darkness, his resolve to stay awake crumbling in the face of the adrenaline dump. He falls asleep to the sound of the last, late returning crews spinning down.

. . .

Poe’s woken by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He smiles at the feel of it, and opens his eyes to see it belongs — unexpectedly and not altogether welcomely — to Snap. Flanking him a few feet behind is Squadron Leader Antilles. Both are fully dressed, backdropped by the shabby sparsenesss of Poe’s room, and it makes Poe acutely aware of how naked he is.  And fucking alone in bed, which was not how he had hoped to wake.

“Morning, skipper,” Snap says, careful.

“Christ, Snap,” Poe gripes, flinching away from his friend’s hand and further into the blanket, pushing the heel of his palm into his eye in an attempt to force full consciousness faster. “What happened to knocking?”

“Sorry, old bean. Thought it was about time you were awake.”

“Did you, now?” Poe says flatly. He just about manages not say something sharper — there’s something thin about Snap’s smile. Something grim in the room, and not just Antilles, who Poe nods at. “Sorry for my present state of undress, sir, I wasn’t expecting company.”

Snap half-smiles at the lie. Poe asks,“What’s happening?”

Antilles says, “Anakin Skywalker died this morning.”

“Right.” Poe blinks at him. He has to play the words back in his mind again to make sense of them. Poe’s struck, unbidden, by the memory of standing in front of Luke’s father in pyjamas, the damaged stare assessing him. “What...what happened?” he asks, the words insufficient.

“Pneumonia. Apparently it accelerated rather quickly.”

Complications from the gassing. Kes’s coughing before his death had sounded so frightening, a sound that didn’t sound like it came from a human. Poe remembers hearing it through the closed door to his parents’s bedroom. The winter of ‘36 turned bitter, the sea breeze soaking the farmhouse with a chill that froze overnight. He remembers huddling in a blanket outside his parent’s bedroom, listening for his dad’s breathing, waking up to silence.

He takes a breath, wanting to ask after Luke, not having the words, not knowing the answer he was looking for. Antilles glances away for a moment, squinting at the window behind Poe.

“We received word while you were inbound from Dresden. Told Luke as soon as you got back,” Snap says. “He left directly with Wing Commander Solo.”

“Fuck.” Poe rubs the bridge of his nose, absolutely _not_ willing to imagine how that must have gone. “You could’ve told me.”

“News hadn’t broken yet, and the Palace didn’t want a scene. Besides, Luke insisted we let you rest.”

Snap’s face is kind, and he looks better rested than Poe feels, despite probably having had less sleep; Poe looks at Antilles, who presumably has had even less. His face is serious, the delicate skin of his eyes bruised by exhaustion.

Poe rubs at his eyes again. “Well, thank you for telling me, gentlemen. Mind giving a chap privacy to get some clothes on?”

“Tea’s ready in the mess whenever you are, skip.”

. . .

There’s a fugue of scratchy restlessness that permeates the base right down to its foundations. The crews generally behave on the best of days like a nervy pack of something both hunter and hunted, bristling against each other even as they huddle for fundamental warmth. Today it’s worse; the mess is full of strung out officers, most smoking furiously, the room filling with the stench of damp tobacco. The wireless drones for most of the morning of ‘a nation in grief’. This earns a few caustic comments from the assembled airmen, unkind comments about Luke’s father, the Father of Night.

Poe sits with Snap and Finn, busies himself with rolling the week’s supply of cigarettes. Snap plays solitaire, and Finn writes a letter. They don’t know when they’re to be slated for operations again, the entire Squadron left off the Bomber Command battle order, which normally means there’s something big in the wings.

Poe, having the physical, if brief, memory of Luke’s father, still can’t quite reconcile it with Anakin’s legacy. After they hear his history for about the third time Poe snaps and crosses the mess in a few angry strides to turn the wireless to jazz. The Andrews Sisters sing _Bei Mir Bistu Shein_ , the notes bright in the otherwise subdued room, which after a few moments just feels even more hideously inappropriate.

Poe shuts it off with a taut movement. His crew are pointedly not looking at him. He doesn’t display temper often, and he feels himself colouring.

“Right.” Snap cracks his newspaper across his lap. “Come on skip, let’s go and work on Annie.”

He means the Avro Anson, the Squadron’s erstwile transport aircraft. It had started as a form of punishment for the officers — Han’s verbal slaps on the wrist proving largely ineffectual, he had started sending his wayward men to menial work  — polishing the canopy, getting the mud off her, renewing her livery; simple, non-technical drudgery — as a means of punitive action. It had had the opposite effect — for men drawn to playing with large toys, working on the Anson had become a popular squadron past time, as the care of the actually operational kites was left to the qualified ground crews.

At Annie’s hangar, Poe pulls on a grubby set of coveralls, watching Snap do the same. Snap — being actually qualified to fondle engines — goes and does just that, getting to work on removing the engine cowling for no reason that Poe can fathom. Poe — being just a thick pilot — is handed a bucket, a rag and a chamois, and told to see to the underside.

Whoever had flown her last had put her away filthy; there’s a spray of earth behind her undercarriage wheels. Poe is deeply offended and gets to work immediately, soaking the mud and swathing it off methodically. He starts to sweat a little in the midday heat, enjoying the way the wing emerges beneath his chamois and rags, tangible evidence of hard work. Of making something better.

Antilles finds them after an hour or so. Poe is bent over, seeing to the rear undercarriage, filthy and damp from spilled water.

“You and I are attending the funeral, on Friday." Antilles informs him. "I’ll have my batman see to your uniform.” Four days away, for the body to lie in State, for the palace to put together a funeral. Antilles’s words are matter-of-fact, but his voice is pitched a shade below his normal commanding bellow. “You won't get your Navigator back before then. Your crew are halfway through their tour; we’ll put you on training this week if it's all the same to you? Impart some longevity into the new bloods.”

“Roger, sir, wilco.” Poe rubs the side of his nose, knowing he leaves a trail of muck in his finger’s wake.

Antilles nods, and moves to the engine that Snap is working on. As they begin to talk in low voices, Poe sluices the rest of the muddy water from the aircraft, and goes in search of a shower. He’s faintly annoyed to find his dress uniform already gone from his room.

In the four days that pass before he gets it back, Poe does three training sorties with new crews; the hope that the new skippers look at him with is fairly crushing. He doesn't bother trying to describe what it's like over there, although that's always the first question. He sticks to the concrete things he can teach the pilots about evading flak: flying low, how to corkscrew effectively. The lesson is important, and there’s still a fucking war on, and he hasn’t seen Luke for days, his crew is doing their nut — but he notes he still finds pleasure in the simplicity of an aircraft and sky, with a mandate just to fly, not to destroy.

He’s brought back to Earth with a letter from home, in Gran’s weathered hand, and finds a quiet corner of the base to read it.

_...the new land girl has arrived from the North; I judge she will do well once her hands toughen up and she stops crying into her pillow at night, but that is only a question of time. Miss Jyn will be moving to London to be with her young man. Although it does not do to play favourites, I confess we shall miss her strong back, and stronger spirit. I do believe your mother wishes she might have stayed with us, only for the prospect of an infant about the farmhouse again, but the girl has no wish to be an idle mouth._

_In keeping with the rural idyll, our new vicar came to tea this Wednesday — to offer counsel and sympathy to one of our girls whose fiancé was lost on the HMS Royal Oak — so he claimed, but lingering rather overlong over his biscuits in your mother’s drawing room once his duties were dispensed with. Were this a more Classical age, Poe, I might have commissioned you as a sort of Telemachus, to come home to us and lay waste to this pestilence of suitors with bow and arrows — but I am heartened, as ever, by your mother’s good sense and discerning eye. Jyn’s young man, when he came down last month, got the good china, but I was glad to observe that Mr. Vaspar did not. Man of God or no, we do not care for his conversation, nor for his politics. I am afraid he is of the hand-wringing sort who believes that all of this could have been avoided if everyone had thought as Mr Chamberlain did and “saw sense”. Sense indeed; the man wouldn’t know sense if it sat in the front pew dressed as a harlequin._

_Mr. Vaspar furthermore appeared to be under the impression that such sentiments would be well-received by your mother and I; his condolences for our earlier loss and assurances to offer up prayers for your safety and “a speedy, sensible end to the regrettable violence” left a miasma about the drawing room.I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you, Poe, that your mother told him in no uncertain terms that were it not for the great barriers of her sex and the responsibilities of Lincombe Farm, she would have availed herself of a Spitfire in a trice, and that she in turn prays nightly for your success in standing between Hitler and Mr. Vaspar’s well-appointed vicarage. I daresay he retreated with his tail rather between his legs, leaving me only with the dilemma of whether or not to take up my accustomed pew this Sunday. I may do, if only to make him nervous. I suppose that is a wickedness unbecoming at my age._

_Even if your skills with the bow are not needed, Poe, your mother and I do wish we could see you more often. Mrs Lars’ boy has managed to make it back to Devon twice during his time of service, and he’s flying Pathfinders, so your absence behooves you not._

_You are in our prayers – and, I am sorry to say, in Mr. Vaspar’s; I only hope it does not give you indigestion._

_Your loving grandmother,_

_Dormé_ _Dameron_

Poe re-folds it carefully and tucks it inside his jacket pocket, close to his heart.

. . .

When Poe gets his dress uniform back on the morning of the funeral, it’s shining and pressed, starched to a degree he could never have imagined and with the addition of a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross from spitfire fighter duties. Antilles stands in Poe’s doorway, anticipating the question; “For the Mohne Dam. Sorry to skip the ceremony.”

“I’m sure today will be enough of a show.” Poe says quietly, not taking his eye off the new medal.

 _Rapier’s_ crew packs them off with their best wishes for Luke, caps doffed as they see them into the smart number the Palace has sent for them. Two hours through countryside then motorway; Poe settles in the corner tries to sleep, but the stiffness of his uniform is vicelike. Antilles manages better, arms settled over himself neatly like he was in a sarcophagus, and passing out. Poe eventually follows suit.

They wake at the outskirts of London, a motorcade escorts them through the roads of London and straight to the heart of the city, their car settling into a long line leading into the Abbey. Poe stares at the crowds lining the streets, feeling trapped, seeing so much humanity in one seething mass, a forcible reminder of what cities are actually like. Antilles seems to know what he’s doing; pulls his uniform cap into place with a tug as he exits the car neatly. Poe does the same, letting himself be herded in the direction of the rest of the RAF contingent, a pocket of grey-blue among Army reds and sailor navy.

The shuffle of the procession inside Westminster Abbey is familiar to Poe in cadence from officer training. They are ushered into the pews, Poe ending up on the end; the RAF officer to his left, on closer inspection, turns out to be Air Chief Marshal Windu. Behind him is an ancient, bewhiskered Royal Navy officer who he suspects is First Sea Lord Ackbar.

The Abbey, a gothic construction north of Parliament that Poe has been only tangentially aware of up until now, rises around them, stone and iron and art. There are memorials to battles centuries older, and it gives him a sort of philosophical vertigo — the idea that his war, in technology and global scale unlike anything that had come before it, was just another conflict. One day it too would be consigned to history like those comprising the imposing structure around him. Anakin Skywalker will today become commemorated, only truly glorified in death.

Perhaps Luke will too, one day — but Poe is comforted by the knowledge that he himself has no place among the stone immortals, that the hundreds that he’s killed with _R-Rapier_ and the spitfires before will fade with the rest of the history.

He tries to listen to the service, but can’t follow. It seems to happen in a reality he’s separate from; interminable readings, hymns Windu puts in front of him that he struggles to sing. He’s too tired, too aware of the back of Luke’s slightly bowed head, his officer’s cap under his arm. Even sitting he’s taller than his sister; they’re pressed close in the front pew, Luke’s burnished gold hair a contrast to the black veils of his mother and sister.

He thinks of the simplicity of his father’s funeral, the words of the vicar who had married his parents and baptised him, had taught the Sunday school Poe had attended until he discovered rugby, hymns to which he knew every word. The same line of family bidding goodbye; Poe wonders if the pageantry will make it easier for Luke that it had been for him.

The service finishes, the stillness of the cathedral stirring back to movement. Luke walks behind the coffin with his family, face flushed and eyes bright. He’s looking ahead, unflinching, until he’s next to Poe’s pew and he flicks one look at Poe, unerring, before back to eyes forward.

**. . .**

Air Marshall Windu turns to Poe after the service, and he fields the polite questions about the Dacre operation until Solo extricates him — with a gesture singularly lacking deference to the head of their organisation — and spirits Poe along some stone corridor warped with antiquity and into the open air of a courtyard.

Luke and the Princess are with their mother, Rey, and Luke’s Uncle Obi-Wan standing close. The effect of the three veiled women around Luke serves to highlight the magnificence of his uniform; afforded the opportunity to look at him closer Poe can see his dress uniform has adornments Poe has never seen before, titles and accolades Luke has been born into.

Poe follows behind Solo, who moves to Leia, kissing her black-veiled cheek and hand, before doing the same to Padme and Rey. Poe feels a little uncertain doing the same; he bows to Leia and the Queen, and by extension Luke. Obi-Wan offers his hand; Poe removes his glove before shaking it. The elder man’s eyes are kind.  
  
“Young man. A dreadfully sad day to be re-united.”  
  
Poe inclines his head. When Obi-Wan let’s go his hand, Luke reaches for it; he’s still wearing gloves. “Hello, Flight Lieutenant,” His smile is terribly thin.

“Hello...Squadron Leader.” Poe returns, trying to cover the informality of holding Luke’s hand instead of shaking it.  For one insane moment he thInks about kissing it, imagining the cool leather against his lips. He releases it instead, realising they’re mirroring Han and Leia.

The Queen holds hers out in turn; not to be kissed, just to bring him nearer. “Flight Lieutenant,” she says in greeting. “Thank you for coming.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, your Majesty.”

She lowers her eyes; it might be the black muslin before her face, but she looks older than Poe had seen her before. Rey in comparison looks younger — her emotion is worn plainly, and she glances uneasily and frequently between the assembled persons. Leia, from what he can see through the veil, looks exactly as Poe remembers; steadfast. She is talking to Luke, a conversation clearly resuming from before Poe arrived.

The Queen squeezes his hand before letting it go, saying, “I wish you had met him in his prime. I...always believed there was good in him.”

It’s a stunningly intimate observation. A bald acknowledgement of Anakin’s reputation, and raw hope. Poe clocks Luke’s uneasy glance. He’s fiercely glad Luke has been absent for the unkind things said about his father in the mess. He sets his mouth in what he hopes is an understanding line, and nods to the Queen, saying, “Ma’am,” softly. “I was privileged to meet him.”

Poe’s suddenly aware of both twins watching their conversation. Leia interrupts first, addressing Poe directly.

“Mr Dameron, congratulations on your Dams mission.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He wants to wish her sorry for her loss, but as he fishes for something to say wherein he’s not directly repeating himself she continues,

“I wish we were meeting again under happier circumstances.” Her eyes find his; even through her veil he can see they’re a startlingly different colour to Luke’s, something he can only appreciate with the two standing next to each other. “As it stands, we won’t keep yourself or Han for a second longer from the squadron.”

“Or me.” Luke adds, just a little too fast. He catches himself. “I’m sorry, mother — I’m not keen to go, I just—”

“Darling, I understand. Go.” She lays her gloved hand on Luke’s cheek, as if he was three, not thirty-five. “He would be so proud of you.”

Poe doesn’t miss the look the shadow that passes across Luke’s face, how the Queen’s words tighten the skin at his eyes. Padme appears not to notice, as she looks at Poe.

“Continue to do your best, won’t you, Mr Dameron?”

“I promise, Your Majesty,” Poe replies, reflecting he’s going to get into trouble promising things to Skywalkers.

Obi-Wan escorts her to the main cathedral, leaving Poe with Luke and Leia, and Rey and Han. Leia focusses in on her brother.

"You won't reconsider, will you? We have work for you here." she asks.

"No." Luke’s face, though pale, is resolute. It’s an expression that’s familiar to Poe.

“Air Chief Marshal Windu was most persuasive at the last cabinet meeting; you’ll soon find the effects of his argument as your targets change.”

Luke shifts his shoulders, looking defiant through the misery and tiredness stalking his face. “Nothing would persuade me to give up my post, Leia, and especially in such circumstances.”

Poe catches Rey’s eye over the warring twins, and they exchange a wide-eyed look of mutual awkwardness at being caught in the middle of the sibling spat. Han has his arms folded, mouth quirked.

Leia’s next volley is uncompromising. “You know who our cousins are, Luke. London is under attack every day. We have no heir.”

Poe can hear it before Luke says it, wincing in anticipation. He sees his tension mirrored in Rey, her mouth partly open as if to say something to stop it.

“That's not my fault.”

Leia is unflinching. “Nor mine.”

That shuts Luke up good and proper. He goes completely still for a moment, and Rey lets out a huff. Poe looks away.

Luke says in a softer tone, “I'm sorry, Leia.”

Poe watches as Leia rolls her eyes, before holding her arms out to him. He crosses the space between them and clutches his sister as she wraps her arms around him, clinging tight.

Rey, behind them, makes a noise akin to exasperated giggle, followed by a sniff. Poe watches she wipes her face with her hand, under her veil. Glad of the opportunity to stop observing the prince and princess, he deftly steps around them to offer out his handkerchief.

“Thank you.” Rey lifts her veil back for the first time. Poe wonders if it’s the first funeral she’s ever attended, putting his hand on her shoulder as she blows her nose. He’s surprised as she turns to him and envelops him in a hug, which he returns awkwardly after a moment.

As they step back, Han eyes him and then uncrosses his arms, nodding at the twins. “For all Luke’s smart mouth, we’ve got forty eight hours before we’re due back to the Squadron. I’ll send Wedge down tonight, and then I’m taking Leia back to the Castle. I can bring Luke, or you can sort him out.”

Poe follows his gaze to where Leia is still holding Luke, her hands making slow circles on his shoulder blades.

“I’ll take him.”

. . .

Poe doesn’t have a lot of time to think about it. He calls the farm from the RAF Club where he and Antilles spend the night, gets a land girl who he doesn’t recognise answering the phone, and leaves a message for the guest room to be prepared. He can’t be explicit; one wrong word down their local pub and there’ll be all kinds of hell.

Then he calls the Palace, which, in retrospect, he perhaps should have done first. He goes through about five different people, including Han, before Luke comes to the phone.

“Hello, skipper.” Luke says. Poe feels a warmth in his chest, a bulwark against the nerves of what he has to say.

“Hello, nav. How are you doing?”

“We all had an early night.” He still sounds exhausted. “My mother left for Scotland this afternoon.”

“I hope it brings her comfort.” A moment of silence, during which Poe hears Luke let out a breath. “Han has given us forty eight hours.”

“Yes, he did mention.“ Luke doesn’t sound surprised.

“It’s quite a train journey, but I’m going to Devon. Home. Do... you fancy coming along?” Luke doesn’t reply straight away; Poe listens to him breathe out before he continues. “The farmhouse will be draughty, my mother will overfeed you and my grandmother will probably terrorise you, but I promise a decent supply of cider and non-powdered eggs. I rather owe you some domestic hospitality. If you don’t have other duties, or similar.”

Luke’s pause this time is shorter. “I think that’s a marvellous idea, skipper.”

. . .

After the pomp and circumstance of the day before, Luke arrives alone to the train station, in his ordinary number ones, carrying his own small kitbag. Poe’s wearing the same. An hour's delay sees them settle themselves with rolling tobacco and a reasonably quiet corner of the platform.

Poe had suspected the RAF uniforms would make them conspicuous. In particular, Luke — a gigantic propaganda hanging is suspended from the main arch of Paddington station, Luke and his sister depicted nearly a storey high. Poe hadn't fancied the fuss of his Navigator getting recognised, but, seeing the two next to each other, he needn't have worried.

"Not much likeness, is it?" Luke remarks, once he'd followed Poe's gaze. "Somewhat flattering."

"Whoever modelled for that, is at least ten years your junior and has better hair," Poe agrees.

Luke smiles. “I’m sorry to be so disappointing in the flesh."

“It’s a more accurate likeness of your sister. She _does_ look that fierce in person.”

Luke gently kicks him in the shin. “I think you’ll find she prefers ‘inspirational’ rather than ‘fierce,’” he says, and returns his attention to the papers and leaves in front of him.

Poe looks again at the poster. The Prince is fresh-faced, skin milky and cheeks rosy, complementing golden hair that sits perfectly against his head. His blue eyes are wide as if with wonder, as if what he and the Princess are gazing at over the horizon before them is the peaceful paradise that would no doubt ensue after they'd kicked the Hun all the way back to creation. Beneath, ‘WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED’.

There is some likeness to the Luke before him: the same round nose, the base uneven. But whereas the poster Prince's mouth is full, sat in a firm, straight line of defiance and hope, Poe is familiar with the way Luke's mouth often leans, lacking symmetry, tightening or loosening depending on how hard he 's concentrating, plotting course or rolling a fag. The texture of Luke's skin is rougher than the poster, exposed daily to a windswept airfield and nearly nightly high altitude in a barely insulated aircraft. He’s beginning to bear indents on his skin from the oxygen masks, the same that Poe had picked up from flying spitfires. The years erased from his face in the poster are evident in the corners of his eyes, the prominent sweep of his cheek.

Luke, realising that Poe is staring, catches his eye. The arresting blue from the poster — that, at least, is accurate.

"What, skip?”

"Nothing." Poe grins. "For what it's worth, I quite like the reality of you."

Luke smiles at him.

“So...just your mother and grandmother at the farm?” Luke says conversationally. Poe hears a hint of apprehension in the tone.

“Do you want a briefing? This isn’t a royal or indeed, military engagement.”

Luke sighs, before passing Poe a cigarette lit from his own. “That’s not what I meant, skipper. Just...yes, well, call it a briefing if you like.”

“With forty eight hours, the train journey will be half the trip, I’m afraid. There's my mother, who deliver the very best of hearty country fare, and my grandmother, who will probably be glad of someone to share a glass of sherry with. And a veritable army of Land Girls.”

“Your maternal grandmother?”

“No, my father’s mother. Dormé Dameron. She’s lived at the farm since just before I was born; I think my parents were grateful for the companionship, and the back-up. I was quite a handful growing up.”

Luke raises his eyebrows. “I believe it. I can only imagine what kind of trouble a young boy on a farm might have got up to.”

“Blame the lack of siblings. I had to make my own fun, I didn’t have a convenient playmate from birth.”

Luke gives half a smile. “I’m not sure that’s what Leia was even _most_ the time."

Poe’s gaze drifts back up to the poster. “Doubtless you’ll hear all kinds of embarrassing stories from my youth as a simple farmer’s boy. I do hope one day I’ll get to hear the same of yours.”

On the train, they nab a private carriage, travelling at a time when most respectable people are either at war or work. As soon as they pull out of the station, Luke puts his head against Poe’s shoulder and goes into an extremely deep sleep. Poe, having shared a bed with him through whole nights and mornings, knows that Luke is an active sleeper; fidgety and occasionally mumbly, his dreams too interesting to be contained to just his subconscious. But this time Luke sleeps so completely during the three hours to Barnstaple that Poe checks no less than four times to make sure he’s still breathing.

He doesn’t sleep himself; reads idly, a Biggles novel he’d picked up at the Squadron, the bright cover comfortingly familiar. He considers growing a moustache, rules it out in the same breath, and tries to sleep himself, but Luke on his shoulder and chest is too gently beguiling. He closes his eyes and drifts between sleep and waking, all the way to the West Country.

The approach into Barnstaple is achingly familiar, the last couple of miles a recognisable blur of gently undulating land that drops off before the horizon to the flat line of the sea, something he hasn’t seen at ground level for a while. He hasn’t been home since before Dacre; it’s still sort of wonderful that everything remains unchanged, as if the war couldn’t extend this far from Europe-facing coasts. Poe, flying heavy bombers deep into civilian settlements, knows this is not the case, but with the sunnyness of the day and the weight of Luke on his shoulder it’s easy to entertain the notion.

He wakes Luke as they pull into the station, watches as he surfaces in mild confusion. They're alone, so he can kiss Luke's hairline before they shuffle themselves off the train, just another set of uniforms in wartime Britain.

He doesn’t have to wait long to spot his mother, who comes barreling down the platform on their vector; she engulfs Poe in an unabandoned of hug of such force Luke takes a step back from Poe’s shoulder, catching his bag as it slips to his elbow. Poe can’t help hug her back, laughing.

"Hello mum," Poe says, as she peppers his cheek with kisses. "Stop that immediate —   _get off_ , mum!”

He’s too late; Shara’s reflexes outfox his honed in aircraft cockpits. She removes his chip hat and sweeps her hand through his hair in a vigorous ruffle. "What do you do to your _hair_ ;" she admonishes, "this can't be good for it."

Poe is aware of Luke looking at his hair, guessing that it’s curling in the wake of his mother’s fingers.  He gets the sense that Luke is comparing them, much in the same way Poe had assessed Luke’s likeness to the poster.  To his horror his mother licks her thumb, as if to smooth his front locks. "That's much better. Here— “

"I'm not four,” Poe squeaks, continuing to fend off the assault. He clears his throat. "Mum, please. This is Squadron Leader George Luke Anakin Skywalker. He's the navigator in my crew."

His mother’s eyes widen for a second, taking in all five foot six of him, a short-ish officer of modest handsomeness, and not the tow-headed embodiment of God given righteousness. She’s in farm breeches but curtsies briefly, the lack of finesse in the movement made up for in the warmth of her smile.

“Mrs Dameron, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Luke offers his hand, and Shara shakes it confidently.

“Your highness, I should apologise for my son. He just sent word to get the guest bedroom ready; I assumed it was just going to be one of his scrubby squadron mates.”

“Well, I’m afraid you were most correct on that score, Mrs Dameron; I _am_ one of his scrubby little squadron mates.” Luke smiles. “I’d hate to cause of any fuss.”

“Oh, no fuss at all, Squadron Leader. I just wish my son had saw fit to furnish me with exactly the full story regarding the identity of his crew members.” She slaps, none too gently, Poe upside the head. “And not left it to the bloody newspapers.”

" _Mum_. Please," Poe holds the back of his head protectively. "Let's do this over tea, shall we?"

. . .

Lincombe Farm, the seat of what remains of the Dameron clan, sits in a rural idyll. As they drive, he’s aware of competing feelings uncurling within him. The drive home that he knows every twist and turn of; past the cricket ground where he’d played as a boy, the church where they’d buried his father. He can feel some parts of him unwinding at the prospect of home at the end of the drive. Another part of him, annealed by wartime flying, feels more than restless; feels traitorous, going home and seeking peace at such a time. He looks around at the yard, as they pull in; the biggest telling off of his life had been driving the farm’s jeep into one of the barns, at night, after too much cider liberated from the family’s stock and imbibed liberally among Poe and his rugby team cohorts.

The barn still bears the mark, even a decade later. The yard is scruffy and unremarkable to the outside eye; mismatched barns and farm outhouses orbiting a small white cottage. Poe spares Luke a glance as they step out into it, feeling somehow exposed, his childhood history laid out in detail. The chickens named after members of the Red Baron’s squadron, the tree he’d fallen from the highest branches of resulting in the scar at his hairline, the barn where he’d rolled with members of the Rugby squad and crashed his parent’s jeep. The air is sea-fresh, competing with farm smells as he takes an appreciative lungful. Luke is doing the same.

His grandmother is waiting for them, standing in the split doorway. She appears, as ever, as stoutly unchanged by the turmoils of current affairs or the rough and tumble of a working farm. Her mostly silver hair is still shot through with black, neatly and intricately braided at the back of head, a stark contrast to Shara’s untamed ponytail. She squeezes Poe’s biceps and kisses his temple, which to her generation means very pleased to see you indeed.

“Ah, Poe. You come most presently upon your hour; I’ve just heaved a gigantic Victoria sponge from the oven. Not that you deserve but the tiniest wedge, giving us less than a day to prepare to host royalty.”

Luke, standing a step away, blushes again. “Madam, may I most sincerely apologise, it was never my intention to —”

“Oh it is most decidedly not your fault, young man.” Only Dormé Dameron would get away with interrupting a prince in such a manner, Poe reflects, as she takes Luke’s hand and bobs into a curtsy with less effort than Shara had. “I assure you I’ve gone through far larger trials than unexpected royalty in our midst. Come in before the land girls catch sight of you, which will no doubt result in all manner of local talk. I do hope you enjoy cake.”

There’s tea with the cake, in his mother’s best china. He grins at Gran over Shara’s head, the grin dropping when she places a mug in front of Poe. His mother’s favourite; the twins on the occasion of their fifth birthday, cameos of cherubic infants, Luke in a sailor suit and Leia in a dress of the Skywalker tartan, rosy-cheeked and styled among the family crest and wildflowers.

He looks up at her, and Gran favors him with the smallest of smiles, before carving a piece of Victoria sponge for Luke’s plate roughly the same heft as a 1000-pounder bomb.

They are shoo’d out of the kitchen before dinner; Shara has her evening rounds to make and refuses all the offered help, claiming she wants to keep them both to herself rather than cause a stir among the farm workers. Poe is about to insist, but he catches sight of Luke’s face; twitchy under the tiredness, his eyes glancing about the kitchen. Poe understands the restlessness, a crepuscular reaction bred into them by night operations.

He leads Luke into the the garden instead. Despite the darkening sky, they make quick work of the paths through the cider orchard, enjoying the fresh air. The sea view is still spectacular; their shoes covered in farm dust and dirt, Poe takes him to the bottom of the cottage garden where it ends into a cliff face, a narrow path leading to the coast below.

He watches as Luke scans the skyline, his gaze tactical as much as it was appreciative.

“I bet you get a corker of a sea breeze in the afternoon,” Luke comments, as he fills his lungs deeply. “But it’s very beautiful nonetheless.”

"It's not Balmoral." Poe scratches the back of his head. "Or Skywalker Castle."

"You don't get an ocean view like that, at Skywalker Castle."

"You’d be hard pressed to get a steak and kidney pie with a bottom quite as soggy as what you’re about to experience, either,” Poe says affectionately, grinning.

“Skipper,” Luke says, admonishingly, but he manages to smile back. He scrunches his nose, which Poe finds _delightful_ , then says, “I know there’s a joke here about Damerons and firm bottoms, but you’ll forgive me if it escapes me at the moment.”

Poe laughs, the sound disappearing into the sea breeze.

At dinner, Poe is witness to a display of what Luke has been taught is social skills; he asks a series of carefully measured questions, probing the farm operation. Poe lets his family take centre stage, quietly but determinedly starting on the large flagon of cider on the table.

“Poe tells me this is your family’s farm?” Luke directs the question at Shara, who nods.

“Yes, that’s right. Poe may think he has the monopoly on naughty farm child stories, but I assure you my three sisters and I were far bigger tearaways than he ever managed. I never wanted the farm when I was small — I was rather dazzled by London, and then dazzled by a strapping young accountant there.” Gran smiles, the expression softening her features; Poe knows she never gets tired of this story, and Shara will still tell it at the drop of a hat. “This was, what, 1913? We courted in London, but it all went wrong when he travelled back here to ask my father for his permission to marry me; he fell in love with the farm. My father bequeathed it to us just before we married.”

Luke nods and says, “I can see why he was charmed. I would choose to live by the sea, too, if I could.”

Poe’s eyebrows raise, in spite of himself. He thinks of the black sheet of the ocean, ripped by angry whitehorses on starry nights, leading them to the european mainland, and turns his attention back to his pie and peas.

“Dormé joined us just after Poe was born,” Shara continues. “I was very grateful, and lucky to have a fairy godmother as a mother-in-law, and not a wicked stepmother.  There was so much to be done after the war, with the farm, and a tiny demanding baby.”

She winks at Poe to take the sting out of it, and Poe grins back.

Luke turns to Gran. “Where were you before Lincombe Farm? Did you travel far?”

Gran inclines her head, delicately laying down her fork. “A cold ocean at my doorstep was rather a shock after the humid climates of Burma. I was there with Poe’s grandfather, who was a Colonel in the Bengal Staff Corps.”

Luke’s eyebrows lift. “When?”

“1885, just before the investiture of Mandalay Palace. We stayed there for decades; my sons were born there. Kes was always keen to live in England, but my eldest son, Huo served in the same regiment during the British administration. My husband passed away just before the last war began. Huo’s regiment was recalled to Europe at the start; I held on in Burma expecting them back before Christmas. He was killed at the Somme, and so Devon awaited me. Have you been to Burma, young man?”

His grandmother speaks without too much emotional inflection. Poe watches Luke carefully.

Luke doesn’t meet Gran’s eye immediately as he replies. “I was very young. I think I spent much of the time following my sister around clinging to her pigtails. I remember a lot of sun, a lot of...big plants.”

“A not inaccurate recollection.” Gran smiles.

The electricity in the cottage gives up midway through dessert; unperturbed, Shara and Gran light oil lamps in a practised fashion, and the latter suggests a game of bridge, if only to interrupt Shara’s spirited monologue about the imminent arrival of a new tractor. Poe’s thinking of his overstuffed childhood bed, and glances to Luke to see if he’s feeling as tired. Luke accepts on behalf of them both, politely offering to partner Gran.

Shara absently kisses Poe's forehead as he settles close to her. It quickly becomes clear whatever skill he had in the past he may have left somewhere in Europe; Shara bemoans his lack of effectiveness.

“Father would be ashamed of me,” Poe says, without thinking. He clocks Shara’s instinctive glance at the mantelpiece, the martialled array of photographs, including his father’s service portrait.

“He did get rather good, didn’t he?” Shara says wistfully. “We spent so many hours playing it, when ill health kept him indoors.”

Luke’s looking at the portrait. Poe winces as Shara passes it to him for closer inspection.

The room falls silent as Luke gazes at the photograph of Poe’s father. It had been taken the day before he’d shipped to France, with the rest of his regiment. The ‘Vader’ regiment, headed by the Queen’s paramour, and maimed by his decision to deploy gas artillery against the advice of military meteorologists.

Since Luke’s brush with frostbite, he’d developed a habit of favouring the fingers of his right hand, curling them into a fist protectively or tucking them in the front of his battledress, as if being careful with the warmth of them. As Poe watches, Luke lays the framed picture down in front of him, over his cards, and curls his injured right hand into a fist. He closes his left hand over the top, and looks at the picture for a few, long moments, utterly silent. Looking at Luke’s folded hands and slumped shoulders Poe’s reminded of the Abbey, looking at Luke from behind during Anakin’s funeral, when Luke had spent more time looking at the casket than the Archbishop.

“It’s a very fine portrait,” Luke finally says. He stands up, and doesn’t meet anyone else’s eyes. “Thank you for a wonderful meal, for...for making me feel welcome in your home. I’m terribly sorry, but I...I’m feeling rather tired.”

“Of course,” Shara says, looking at him worriedly. “I’ll show you to your room.”

Poe stands when Luke leaves with his mother, but doesn’t move to follow, pinned in place by his Gran’s knowing stare. They both wish Luke good night, and Poe makes plans to follow as soon as he can.

His grandmother refills his glass of water, pointedly. Shara comes back quickly, sitting herself next to Poe.

Checking the door is shut, Gran says, “You haven’t discussed with him that your fathers were acquainted, then?”

“I…” Poe sighs. “It didn’t seem important for him to know.” He looks at Gran’s face, takes in his mother’s expression, and asks, “Should I not have brought him?”

“Any friend of yours is welcome here, especially any from your Squadron, my love.” Shara squeezes his wrist.“

Gran says, “No, my dear. We understand why you did. The boy is grieving, and I can only imagine the circus he has had to put up with. I hope he can find some space here. Your father did.”

Poe nods. “I just...we had some time, I didn’t know where else to come. I wanted to see you, I wanted to get him away. I didn’t want to remind you of...dad.”

Gran leans over to touch his hand. “It’s alright. Any friend of yours is welcome here. Regardless of who their father may have been.”

“Luke is...not his father.” Poe says.

“Luke is a fine young man making difficult decisions in a relentless conflict, like his father.” Gran replies. “As are you. But I believe you will both be making better decisions.”

The direct comparison draws Poe up short. He looks at his mother and grandmother, for so long the centre of his world, and finds he can’t say anything. He suddenly feels very exhausted, as he’s assaulted by the memory of sitting against his parents’ closed door, listening to his ailing father, for the second time in a week. It’s followed by the sudden image of Dresden burning beneath his aircraft.

Shara puts her hand on his knee, and he resists the urge to curl into her embrace.

Gran leans across the table to take his hand, says, “I’ve had years — years — to think about what happened to my sons, and that war, and someday I’ll talk to you about it. Probably when you’re ready to talk about your war, Poe, and I know that time is not tonight.”

Poe looks down, at the waning candle on the table.

“We know you’re doing things you can’t talk about,” Shara says, gently. “But when you...if you ever want to, we’re here. And we love you forever. Whatever you’re doing.”

Poe closes his eyes, and says, “I love you, too.”

. . .

His boyhood room hasn’t changed since he’d left home at 18; the same books on the shelves, the carefully arrange Biggles collection. His stained and scratched desk, used more like a workbench than an instrument of academia. His models: the Bristol, the Sopwith Pup, the Fokker Dr I. Dreidecker, a hideous tri-plane German fighter. He’d been so proud of it as a boy, the building and painting of it teaching him more about engineering and physics than the schoolroom. As a man, he shoots anything in German livery, knows very intimately what blown up fighters — in any nation’s colours — look like exploding thousands of feet from the earth, and it’s a far cry from spoilt balsawood. He gazes at them from his bed for a few moments the next morning, before forcing himself up and into civilian clothes.

He hears his mother making noises at the hens outside, ducks competing for the title of loudest fowl. He goes out to help her feed them, chuckling at the familiar sensation of his ankles being flooded by hungry, inquisitive birds. She shoos him back inside for breakfast; she’ll have eaten hours earlier, with the land girls.

Luke and Gran are stood over the hob in the kitchen, and Poe’s pleased to smell real eggs; he’s managed to deliver on that promise at least. Luke is in a smart but not-uniform set of sport trousers and shirt, under a cosy-looking jumper, the very picture of a country gentleman. Their uniform shirts are drying over the aga; Poe doesn’t remember Gran coming in to get his.

“Ah, good morning, young man. I trust you enjoyed your lie-in?” Gran rounds on him now.

Poe checks the clock; nearly nine. He’s slept for nearly ten hours; he’s not sure he’s done that since he’d gained his wings. “Very much so. And yourself, Gran?”

“Superlatively, thank you.”

“And you, Nav? Satisfactory head down?”

“Indeed, skipper. And now Mrs Dameron is very kindly providing us breakfast. She let me break the eggs.” The excitement on Luke’s face is charming, Poe can’t help but laugh, partly from the joy of it and partly at the thought Luke had possibly never broken eggs before.

“Fabulous. Essential life skills. Is the electricity still shagged?” Bright sunshine outside; hard to tell. He folds himself at the table. Luke comes to join him, sitting a measured distance away. Poe inwardly sighs and considers telling him not to bother; that Gran is letting Luke break eggs tells him that she know’s what’s what.

“Thoroughly.” Gran doesn’t bat an eyelid at his language.

The tail-end of breakfast is interrupted by a sudden mechanical belch in the yard. Among the sounds of the various farm fowl fleeing in panic, Poe can hear his mother’s voice, joined by several others.

A quick investigation reveals an unfamiliar vehicle; the new tractor, or at least, second hand — something borrowed from a neighbouring farm to help with the summer work. It’s an odd thought — the farm’s year carrying on as normal, even as the continent dissolves ever further into conflict. A comfort, Poe decides, as he strides into the yard to admire the beast, Luke following behind.

His mother is sat in the driving seat, a land girl in the other, two others ranged around admiringly. None he recognises, and all with differing accents as they’re introduced. A local girl, Holly, who had gone to Poe’s village school years behind him; Rabe, a hairdresser from Leicester; and Tess, a secretary from London. Tess is especially keen on planes, and he trots out his typical patter, ignoring Luke’s rolling eye.

“This is my navigator, Luke...George,” he manages, remembering Luke’s excessive number of initials and choosing the least conspicuous name.

“Mr George,” they chorus, shaking hands. Not one appears to recognise him for anything else, even when Gran brings tea on a tray, and Holly is given the mug with the twins on it. To Poe’s mild relief she doesn’t appear to twig, even when she takes them on a tour of the farm, chattering with enthusiasm about the small dairy operation supported by feed grown on site, with the same amount of pride as if it had been her farm. It is more than his, Poe realises, with a jolt; he pushes the sadness the feeling engenders away, concentrating on the simple of relief of knowing his mother and grandmother are well supported.

When Holly is called back to the fields, he takes Luke into one of the furthest barns, up a track worn by horses and boots and wheels. It’s draughty, stacked to the height of nearly three people with mostly neatly pressed bales that look lush and gold in summer light. Poe pushes inside first, smiling as Luke sneezes from the farm dust flying into their faces.

"This," Poe announces, voice echoing in the cavernous space,  "Was absolutely my favourite place, when I was younger.”

The front bales are messily assembled, not stacked, arranged haphazardly as straw had been taken from them, some spilling around the floor. He climbs the bale nearest to him, half-vaulting the second with ease. Part of the third row has burst, stray straw spilling to the second row, enough to be freely arranged. Luke follows him, less smooth, but appearing to enjoy the impromptu spelunking.

They sit for a moment in the stillness, watching dust motes play in the light. The silence is powerful — he’s relieved to hear Luke breathing next to him, shuffling to fold his hands primly in his lap.

"Well, skipper," Luke says, "I suppose this is where you tell me all manner of stories from your rustic boyhood. Tales of valiant farm boys, who through all manner of derring-do ended up saving galaxies far, far away, all acted out in this very barn?"

"I was thinking of a romance story — bedding lowly farmhands and the like — but I reckon, your royalness, that you could tell a better tale than me on that score. That's what you fine lords and ladies get up to in barns, isn't it?"

"Lords and ladies, maybe. Princes and princesses had elocution lessons and our horses came to us already saddled. I'm not sure I've ever been inside a barn before."

Poe finds Luke’s hand in the darkness, claiming it out of his lap. It’s surrendered without resistance. "Well, never let it be said I don’t take you to glamorous places. I’m afraid you’ll find the bathing not quite up to snuff — the leaky tub in the main bathroom can’t compare to that ocean you keep at Balmoral — but it’ll do for washing the dust off from this place. And I’d be happy to help you reach any difficult spots.”

“As delightful as that sounds,” Luke says, turning to face Poe, whose heart sinks at the lack of flirtation in Luke’s tone, “I’m far more interested to hear why you, before I came to your home, you failed to tell me that your father served in the regiment my father commanded?”

Poe is honest in his reply. “I...it’s wasn’t important, Luke. He could've died in any number of fucking miserable ways in France, died miserably a few years later regardless. That he happened to wear your dad’s regimental badge is just...coincidence.”

“Coincidence.” Luke tries this on his tongue, as if the word was offensively insufficient. He makes a hard sigh, like he wants to argue the point further. Poe’s picked this up too, about his navigator — he thinks about the universe’s patterns, the threads binding them together, linking the living and the dead. Poe is just a pilot — not a farmer, not a philosopher. Luke’s sister is a figurehead, a tactician, a politician, and the spare heir could very easily have occupied himself with frivolous things, such as the day to day business of war. But Poe thinks that maybe sometimes Luke thinks of things bigger than all of them: that Luke likes to consider the stars beyond just how they can point them home.

Poe carries on, “I had years with my father many other children didn’t get after France, whether their dads served in the Vader regiment or right down the other end of the British lines. I brought you here because we both needed a break, and as someone I care very deeply for. That’s what my mother and Gran see. That’s what they care about.”

Poe reaches over for Luke’s hand, which is surrendered, albeit somewhat grudgingly. Luke regards the grip for a moment, before saying, “This is your first trip home, isn’t it? Since you’ve been at Dacre?”

“We’ve been busy, you might’ve appreciated.”

“There’s been other leave. You could’ve come back.”

It’s a question Poe has avoided head-on, has been immensely thankful his mother has been tactful enough not to ask. Luke’s hand has softened in his, and Poe idly presses it to his lips, flicking a look at the barn to make sure the door was shut behind them.

The space they create together has always felt safe — level, whether it’s in the goddamn aircraft, or sharing a sofa or a bed, or slowly curling together on the hay. A space that allows them a raw comfort, when night becomes furious.

“There’s... there’s a theory, that fliers have.” Poe murmurs against the back of Luke’s hand, feeling delicate scar tissue beneath his lips. “About what flying does to your soul; humans aren’t supposed to travel that fast, or that far. That our soul, which isn’t really a physical part of us, can’t keep up when we travel. It made a lot of sense to me when I started flying. And I think I just decided, round about the time I shot down my first German over the white cliffs of Dover that if I was going to do to this, and succeed, it was going to need every inch of my soul. And I couldn’t risk leaving any of it here.”

Luke says quietly, “Do you leave some of your soul in Germany?”

Poe thinks of water, flooding down a valley, carrying the dam away. Of Dresden, flames he can still see behind his eyelids. “Maybe.” He laughs harshly. “Probably for some other bastard to blow up.”

“I think I do.” Luke says. “I think...I think my father may have lost most of his. I’d rather like to hold on to mine.”

Luke’s fingers tighten in his. Poe searches Luke’s face carefully, seeing all the many identities Luke is trying to balance; the abandoned child, the seasoned night hunter, the Prince from the poster. Poe moves their twinned hands to Luke’s face, runs his thumb over Luke’s cheekbone, and wonders, not for the first time, what will become of them. What — and how long — the future is.

Luke moves his cheek, catches the top of Poe’s thumb in this mouth. He nips the pad of Poe’s thumb very delicately, then — quickly also glancing at the door — leans to kiss Poe’s lips. It’s a chaste kiss, but more tender than anything they’ve shared so far, unhurried. Poe leans into the kiss, pressing a hand to the back of Luke’s neck, then shifts until they’re huddled together on the hay bale, sharing body heat through their clothes.

“I haven’t cuddled with anyone since Leia and I were children,” Luke says, breaking the kiss, and mostly into Poe’s hair when Poe moved to kiss Luke’s neck, which he’s learnt Luke fucking loves. “She wasn’t as keen on it as me, but she indulged me on occasion. When the world seemed very frightening.”

“Do you find it less frightening now?”

“No. But maybe I’m just that bit more frightening, too.”  
  
Poe thinks of the firestorms they left in Europe — wants to drive the image from his mind, and kisses Luke’s collarbone. Luke shifts beneath him urgently, then tips Poe’s chin up to kiss again. Luke’s lips part slightly and Poe is surprised-delighted as Luke ever so gently sucks at his lower lip. Luke doing what he had the day they’d returned from the dams — taking charge, under emotional duress.

Poe surrenders to it. His heart moves into a different gear, the injection of adrenaline into his system a familiar feeling now after twenty one missions. He's learned to play through it — frees his hand and buries it in Luke's hair, gently and then not so gently tightening his grip.

The civvy clothing is far easier to strip than their uniforms. Luke removes his jacket, nearly falling off the hay bale in his haste to get it off. Poe laughs as he pulls Luke back up, stealing another quick kiss before pulling them both to their feet, stripping with speed.  
  
They stand naked before each other, pools of clothing at their ankles. Poe is laughing, just a little, increasingly so when Luke looks to the door. Before he gets a chance to consider the ageing lock in too much detail, Poe takes his shoulders, draws him close and kisses him deeply; the length of each other bodies’ skin to to skin is intoxicating. Luke lets out a lovely little noise of irritation when Poe pulls away.  
  
He kneels to the abandoned clothing, shooing Luke out of his trousers. “But keep your socks on,” Poe adds.

“What?” Luke says, just as he’d bent to remove them.

“Trust me.”

“Done this before, have you?” Luke says, as Poe fetches and old but sound horse blanket hung by the door, kept in here for pretty much this purpose. It’s been washed recently, and he briefly spares a thought for what land girl may have made use of it. He spreads it over four or five hay bales.  
  
"There," He announces, pleased. "Fit for a king."  
  
"I hope a prince will suffice," Luke says, and pushes Poe down to the impromptu bed. Poe lands with an 'oof', but a soft enough touchdown. Before he can fully recover Luke puts himself over him, one leg between his Poe's thighs. Poe is hardens in a rush as Luke lowers himself carefully, trapping Poe's cock between them.  
  
"Oh, fuck, Luke, just -"  
  
"Shh," Luke stops for a moment, to look Poe in the eye. It's a short noise, commanding. "Poe. I've got you."  
  
It triggers a memory, of what feels like years ago but is just months — _Rapier_ , flying blind, Luke’s voice in the darkness. Another shot of adrenaline to with it — Poe squirms beneath him, thrusting up against the soft skin of Luke's stomach, one arm reaching up to Luke's shoulders and pulling him in for another kiss.

Luke indulges him in this for a moment before moving away, pausing. Poe has the distinct impression of being considered in some relishing detail, and is about to make a smart comment when Luke puts his mouth to the hollow of Poe's throat. Poe arches his chest up in response, needy for the contact. He moans when Luke blows along the whorls of his ear, and he has to stifle a noise against Luke’s shoulder.

Poe moves his hips, trying for friction against Luke's thigh. "Luke— " The word is choked out, Poe's hand reaching to stall Luke's hand whose palm is flat to Poe's stomach and moving southward. "I—"

“Do be quiet for _just a moment_ , skipper,” Luke says, not-quite-cross.

Poe releases the hold on Luke’s wrist. Luke kisses Poe’s jaw, taking the sting from his words, as he feels the fingers of Luke’s right hand — cold from bad circulation — close around his cock.

Luke’s rhythm is unsure at first; Poe arches into the contact, and the rhythm firms.

It takes all of his self-control to stop. "Wait," he gasps, at the switchback of a thrust into Luke's hand. Luke looks a little startled, but Poe stops him pulling away. "Luke. Come on. Come _here_ ."  
  
With both hands, Poe guides Luke's hips over his — Luke shivers deliciously as Poe gently aligns his cock with where Luke is holding him. Understanding, Luke opens his fingers, allowing them to slide together, Poe's hand increasing the pressure. They move together, against each other, and Luke doesn't last long after that — maybe moments behind Poe, the orgasm building and then all at once in every part of Poe’s body, like a detonation, leaving, for just a few seconds, nothing in its wake.  
  
Afterwards, Luke collapses at Poe’s side, curling into his shoulder. They lie for how long, Poe doesn't know, naked and inseparable, listening to each other breathe, and the summer outside.

. . .

Back at Dacre, Poe wants to ease the crew back into operations after the extended break, get the full measure of how Luke is bearing up. He hopes for at least a couple of days of training sorties, and some time to talk privately with Luke.

He gets none of these things. They're spun back into the fray on multi night-and-day assault on Hamburg, the very night they’re back at the Squadron, and second on the Battle Order.

Poe sits in the general briefing with the crew, aware of how they’re all watching Luke. The prince himself is oblivious to this, scribbling notes on the chart, dragging the chinograph across the map like a weighted blade. Poe makes a vague note that tearing up a pub together was in order, as soon as they get some fucking breathing space.

Bomber Command has turned over an aggressive leaf; the operation is called ‘Gomorrah’. As it spins up; the base is locked down, to remain so for the duration of the attack, ten days and nights. The raids comprise several hundred aircraft, all carrying incendiary loads, the RAF attacking at night, the USAAF covering the day shift.

Poe feels himself and the crew turning into something parallel to human, vampiric and cold from the lack of seeing proper daylight. He can see it most in Luke, the exhaustion and high-octane stress feeding the grief sitting beneath his breastbone. Luke’s hands are restless, his fingers prone to flexing, stretching, his thumb rubbing his palm as if something’s sore, calm only when holding navigational equipment. At night, Poe tries to ease the tension from them, massaging Luke’s fingers between his own, trying to match breathing to calm him, both too tired for proper conversation. Too strung out for anything more than holding each other, needy for warmth and comfort of sleeping together. The pace of the operation is inexorable.

Night nine.

Luke's vectoring Rapier in for the attack run, an efficient course plotted from the rendezvous over Heligoland. Poe is sweating inside his flightsuit as he turns onto Luke’s final heading; he feels it run down his neck and his back, hands rubbery inside his gloves. The city is easy to pick out, marked no longer in selective target indicators but just an ocean of fire. They’d had a grim giggle the day before over the USAAF bitching about not being able to see the day targets through all the smoke from the RAF bombers left during the night.

They're slated to bomb at 18,400 feet. At briefing the Intelligence officer had cautioned them against going any lower; the temperature at ground level will be well in excess of seven hundred degrees.

Luke says, “Primary two miles ahead, skipper. Bombardier, you’re up to bat.” He unhooks his mask to wipe his face; his skin is shiny, the flames from outside putting stark shadows into his face.

BB on the comms; “Left a bit, skip. More. Good — hold her on course —”

Their primary target is St Nikolai’s church. A solid pillar of Gothic, it looms out the burning mass beneath them, quicker and quicker before passing under their nose, in tandem with BB declaring bombs release. The shifted gravity of the sudden loss of the weight makes Rapier want to climb, but Poe pushes forward instead, opening the throttles and demanding more from the engines and piling energy into the dive. Just when they’re approaching Rapier’s maximum maneuvering speed he pulls the nose up sharply but controlled, and into a banking turn to the left.

He rolls _Rapier_ out on a heading for the Dutch border, as Hamburg burns beneath them.

“Reckon that’ll do ‘em?” Lek calls cheerfully from the rear turret. Poe can sense Finn gearing up for a smart answer, when suddenly something flashes into their three o'clock; close. He takes evasive action, Luke bracing himself against the bulkhead as heavy g-force ripples through the aircraft.

“What the flying fuck is _that_?” Bastian probably has the best view, but Poe strains to see anyway. A column of fire rises up from the ground, extending into the billowing smoke sat above the city. It’s fucking biblical, mesmerising, and Poe guides his concentration back to the aircraft.

“That’s a firestorm,” Luke says, his mask back in place. “The city’s been alight for three days. That’s what happens when a blaze gets so vast it starts generating its own winds.”

“Fuck…” Finn breathes into the microphone, unable to finish his sentence.

“Can we get the fuck on with—” Poe begins, as someone starts shooting at them. Without prompting he hears the chatter of the gunner’s response, the .50 cal’s thundering behind him. There’s not enough to even run a status check; they’re under fire on their entire exit from the city — Poe doesn’t even hear Luke’s last exit heading, powers _Rapier_ in the direction of the reciprocal of their attack run.

When the shooting stops, he knows they’ve taken damage. He’s most concerned about BB — the flak has gone through the nose, he’d felt the distinct vibrations of it. BB responds last and he allows himself a tiny sigh of relief.

“Fuck this.” Snap says, apropos of nothing. At the end of his rope.

“Who’s getting the beers in, then?” Lek asks, attempting to be jovial. It triggers instant banter from Finn on the quality of English beer; Poe allows it for a couple of salvos, before reminding them to keep their eyes skinned. He feels the crew settle into the homeward course, nervously watching the dark sky. He can see the flames of Hamburg every time he blinks.

“Nav. Course change?” Poe asks, when Luke misses a checkpoint.

“Oh…” he hears Luke take a breath. “Sorry skip. Heading two-six-zero degrees.”

Poe watches the compass spin in its housing as they turn, anticipating the rollout so he doesn’t overshoot. If Luke is half as knackered as he is he doesn't blame him for missing a point.

When it happens again, Poe has a mind to have serious words. Before he does so, he glances over at Luke. He’s not looking at his charts, just out of the canopy, and not moving.

“Nav?” Poe asks. “Nav, are you alright?”

The rest of the crew goes silent, waiting for the exchange.

“I…” Luke doesn’t turn to look at him. “Skip…” His voice sounds strange; too high, a bit thin. Poe hears him drag a long breath. “Skip, did you see it?”

“Nav, what the fuck are you —”

“The _force_ , skip!” Luke’s definitely slurring his words. “The force…the light...”

“Skipper,” BB’s voice. “It could be his oxygen. That last flak looks like it was close to you two; it might have nicked his oxygen lines.”

“If it’s the whole cockpit — skipper you’re doing alright, yeah?” Snap’s voice. They’re over twenty thousand feet; if Luke’s oxygen supply is gone, he’d had about five minutes of useful consciousness before...this.

“I’m fine.” The aircraft’s trimmed out; Poe reaches to shake Luke’s shoulder. He doesn’t appear to notice, doesn’t take his eyes off the stars and cloud outside.

“Luke!”

Finn’s voice; “I'm coming, Skip, just hold her steady.”

“...luminous beings are we... not this crude matter…” Luke trails off, before slumping forward, his charts falling to the footwell. Poe just about stops Luke from doing the same, grabbing Luke’s elbow with his right hand, his left holding _Rapier_ steady.

“Is that Shakespeare?” One of the gunners wonders.

“Shut up.” Poe barks, thinking fast. He wants to shake Luke but if it is the oxygen, that will be of little help. “Finn, hold position. I’m going for a rapid descent; everyone hold on. Expecting to level out at ten-thou.”

Poe closes the throttle on the two inner engines, and throttles back on the outer two; he wants to close all four, but doesn’t want to risk all of them icing up. They plunge into cloud, descending in excess of eight hundred feet per minute; he hears Bastian swearing softly. He holds the descent; not a dive, the speed doesn’t pile on. He finds himself willing gravity to help them. His stomach protests, but the fear of Luke’s status — oxygen deprivation has all manner of unpleasant and ultimately fatal effects — is stronger.

“I’m coming.” Finn says again. “Keep her steady, skip.”

Finn wriggles forward, past Snap’s station and into the cockpit; he grabs at the bulkhead as Poe arrests the descent, levelling them out at about nine thousand feet. Comfortable to breathe without masks; they can still communicate through the throat microphones, new gear.

“Off oxygen.” Poe confirms. Finn is gently pulling Luke’s shoulders back, resting him against the navigator’s chair. He’s passed out, eyes closed, what can be seen of his face beneath the oxygen mask unresponsive. Poe watches as Finn unhooks his oxygen mask, gently tap his face.

“Come on, ya great royal idiot,” Finn removes his gloves, dark fingers gentle but firm against Luke’s cheek. “Don’t do this to us.”

Poe looks out at the unforgiving sky. Holds his breath.

Blessedly, after a moment, Finn says, “He’s breathing.” At that, so can Poe. He can see Luke stirring, head moving against Finn’s hand.

“Jesus fucking wept,” Lek says. BB is making prayer-like noises, and Poe is struck with a violent need for a Scotch.

Luke recovers enough to give them a heading for home; they land, and there’s a show and dance routine with the medical wing, making sure Luke is serviceable, no permanent effects from his little sojourn with asphyxia.

Han tears a strip off Poe, Chief Nunb replaces the oxygen lines in the Nav’s station, and the next night they’re sent out to do it all again.

. . .

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With particular thanks to [wobblycompetencies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblycompetencies/pseuds/wobblycompetencies) and [rosepetalfall](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rosepetalfall/pseuds/rosepetalfall) for the cheerleading for this chapter, and in the case of the former, also writing the letter from Gran. Absolutely top humans.

**Author's Note:**

> With effusive and eternal thanks to [leupagus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus) for her gorgeous, soul-eating story [to the sky without wings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5609887) which has been the inspiration for so many things, and also for the incredible and patient beta. Thanks and love also to my fellow trash fire disciples [@wobblycompetencies](http://wobblycompetencies.tumblr.com), [@jellyfishfire](http://jellyfishfire.tumblr.com) and [@extraneousaccessories](http://extraneousaccessories.tumblr.com) \- you guys are the absolute bestest.
> 
> On [tumblr](http://dolly-bassett.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blue Skies [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13645548) by [jellyfishfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfire/pseuds/jellyfishfire)




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